Stop Pulling My Weeds

“Bradley, stop pulling my weeds,” exclaimed my father. “Come up on the porch and have a glass of wine with me.” I ignored his call to stop. My father is ninety-one years old and lives alone in a 1920s Craftsman home with a white picket fence surrounding it. He will not hire a gardener to help him maintain it, so I feel obligated to help him by doing yard work when I visit. My Dad likes the wild look of his yard. I can’t stand it. Too much is overgrown and is unkept even for a Xeriscape front yard. The weeds had invaded his gravel walkway, and boxwood hedges and colorful succulents had spilled over their designed area. It appeared unkept and messy. He yells again, “Bradley, stop pulling my weeds. Come up on the porch and have a glass of wine with me.” I kept working, pulling at the unwelcome vegetation. Finally finished I sat down with the rest of the family to enjoy a glass of wine, relax, and celebrate his birthday. My father is in great physical shape however he has a hearing issue. I guess that is something I inherited from him. His hearing problem is from being an ornery nonagenarian. Mine is from not wanting to listen to him complain about helping him. Kim Monson Show Sponsor MISSION Laramie Energy’s mission is to maintain an excellent reputation as a Rockies oil and gas producer committed to environmental protection, safety, and regional community interests while prudently investing its capital in high potential unconventional oil and gas resource plays that will generate an above average return on investment. My father does not feel he needs any help. He has always been independent-minded and does not enjoy having people do things for him. He is appreciative when someone does take an interest in sharing something or giving a token of appreciation, yet he does not want to appear in need or want of anything. He relishes his independence and often declines anyone who wishes to assist him. I understand his “leave me alone and I’ll get along fine” attitude. From the founding of this country up until the Progressive era, Americans have always had a “leave me alone” attitude. The federal government was established to do some essential needs such as protecting its citizens in case of attack. Although leery of standing armies, Americans saw a need for a federal Army and Navy to protect their fellow citizens from foreign invasion. The people saw a need for a police force to protect them from a criminal element and protect their property. Then lastly, a court was established to adjudicate people’s disagreements. That was about the limit of the federal government’s powers. Most adventures outside their preview were prohibited. Everything else was for the local government to undertake, thinking a local government would be closer for the people to challenge. Since human nature does not change there is often a clash of ideas when two or more people gather. My father wanted to spend time with me and drink some wine. I wanted to help him clean up his yard and have the appearance of conformity by maintaining his property. I should have honored his wishes but my “I know better” attitude appeared. Why did this happen to me, a liberty-loving, free-market advocate? My nature of wanting to help a family member, yet usurping his wishes to just let things be, overcame me. This experience demonstrates how quickly we have conflicts of interest when we think we know best and may indeed be right. However, without the consent of the other to take action, it is not our place to disregard a property owner’s wishes. One could argue there are municipal codes for the upkeep and maintenance of property such as public nuisance or health codes to be enforced. My father’s property was never close to this status; however, it was not to my liking or esthetic. It was messy but not so bad that it was in any violation. What is it in our human nature that makes us oppose someone else’s wishes? Our Founders studied human nature from the ancients like Pythagoras to Aristotle, from Seneca and Cicero, and later Sidney, Smith, and Montesquieu. What they found is what we experience daily. Someone with a different idea and power, however slight, will use their tacit authority to force their way on others. These prudent thinkers help mold the unique attributes of America. They understand that the individual is sovereign, and the proper role of government is to protect individual rights and property. It is not to help or assist unless asked for. When help is called upon it should be through the private sector through association with others to help. Upon arriving home, I received a card from my father thanking me for visiting and celebrating his birthday. Then after his words of gratitude came his rebuke. “Brad………Please, please, please DO NOT PICK MY WEEDS. PLEASE Brad Do Not Cut or Pull My Weeds. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE Brad Do Not Pick My Weeds. Please, please. I enjoy it so much when you guys visit and stay with me; BUT PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT PULL MY WEEDS. DO NOT PULL MY WEEDS. This sentiment filled the card. I think I got his message. Now, if we only can get the federal government to do the same. https://kimmonson.com/featured_articles/stop-pulling-my-weeds/?vgo_ee=g21CjlxksfZFwp7cHC32sEyR2klcpnTGqr99R%2FxaZcVGsXRTbo4F%2F37e%3Ar6iW846mfJAgRih0SLxvgS42w62yQ8aH

The Highest Use of the Good

I’m Jewish. At 65 years old I have never felt the cold hand of antisemitism, or as it should be called, a hatred of Jews. I was brought up in a time when discrimination was all but gone. I did not have to escape a pogrom or pick up arms to defend my right to exist. I was free to do, to think, or to say almost anything if I did not physically hurt anyone else. As our sixth President, John Quincy Adams once said “Posterity; you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it”. However, in 2024 I sense the culture has changed. I can feel it, I can hear it, and I can see it. By now you too have heard the maniacal chant by ill-informed college students and professional agitators, “From the river to the sea…,” referring to the annihilation of the State of Israel. The Jewish-hating malcontents and their ilk know nothing of history or truth. Yet, they want my people, my fellow Jews, exterminated. Most will not come out and say it outright. They are cowards. They use the terms Zionist, occupier, or colonist. They are part of the leftist, BLM, Antifa, social-justice crowd who want to tear down the Western World with their Marxist, woke worldview. Need proof? According to Vatican News, since 2009, over 50,000 Christians have been slaughtered in Nigeria by the Islamist Boko Haram. Yet hardly a peep from the traditional media. In Sudan, a year-old civil war is raging, and sixteen thousand people have been killed, 8.2 million have fled their homes, and there is a looming hunger crisis. The Sudanese Christians are caught in the middle of the battle. And yet there has been little reporting on the nightly news of these events. Kim Monson Show Sponsor National Shooting Sports Federation Every day and night the legacy media of the world spotlights the war in Gaza since the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7. Israeli young people dancing at a rave were murdered by Islamist terrorists. Israelis in their homes were mercilessly butchered, women raped. Israeli, American, and other citizens were kidnapped and executed by these vermin. Five Americans are still being held hostage and not a yellow ribbon on a tree or a poster on a bulletin board at a Post Office. Ask yourself why there is so much news on Gaza. The Israelis have the right and moral obligation to defend themselves from terrorists, yet there is no worldwide outrage about the massacres in Africa or in other places in the world. Why are college campuses exploding with hate for Jews, yet there are no marches, chants, or concern for Christians who being persecuted? I was recently reminded of a passage in the Torah, the Jewish Bible, in Genesis 15:18 “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your offspring I assign this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates’ ,” meaning present day Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. The Jewish people were promised all this land by God. Does this divine promise mean Israel should fight the nations that occupy this land? Of course not. Yet, for the Jews there is a different set of rules. That begs the question how do you deal with the fight over land and the grief of feeling your world is about to break apart? Paraphrasing James Madison, how can you console your mind with reason and overcome the passions of the heart and the desires of the stomach? Personally, I have found some solace in old texts. I was browsing at a local bookstore and found a title, “The Pursuit of Happiness” by Jeffrey Rosen. He is an author and the president of the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Using original sources, Rosen cites the books the American Founders read and studied prior and during the American Revolution. The book creates the appetite for pursuing the principle of happiness through the writings of many ancient wisdom philosophers such as Pythagoras, Senica, and Marcus Tullis Cicero. Cicero, the Roman lawyer, orator, scholar, and statesman wrote his Tusculan Disputations, in about 45 B.C.E., after his daughter Tullis died following childbirth. Overcome with grief, Cicero removed himself from the public and retired to his villa in Tusculum to console himself and write Tusculan Disputations in five sections titled, “on the contempt of death, on pain, on grief, on emotional disturbances, and whether virtue by itself is good enough to live a happy life”. Over millennia word definitions have evolved and today happiness is defined as short-term pleasure. In the time of Cicero and the Founders such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, happiness was defined as the pursuit of long-term virtue through the practice of self-mastery. A person accomplished happiness by disobeying their desires and emotions and prioritizing their reason through the classical virtues of temperance, which is moderation, prudence which is wisdom, justice which is fairness, and fortitude which is courage. Incorporating this appeal to reason would go a long way in our responses to the world as it currently manifests itself. The only thing you can control is your turbulent emotions. You can find peace in the tranquility of a calm mind. Like most of you, I have read the vile words on social media about Jews. I have heard the vitriol on the news. Imagine if the same thing were said about Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women, or gays. It’s expected that those who are attacked will lash out and react. It has become unfamiliar to use the virtue of prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude of the ancients. It takes discipline to reject that which has found a voice in discontent and rejoice in the knowledge that controlling oneself is the highest use of the good. I have understood that persuasion, patience, and persistence is the only way to save our republic, and indeed our world, without getting into a global conflict. The exception is when tyrants and evil want to do the opposite. Taking up arms by using force is the despots’ only solution. Then they should be met with disproportionate force to protect one’s sovereignty to defend the dignity of the individual. The limited power of the federal government has one major purpose, to protect the individual rights of its citizens. With a weak President our fellow citizens and country are at risk. John Quincy Adams wrote “America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature.” My hope is that our representatives use their persuasive skills and use reason to protect all people to live in peace. “Am Yisreal Chai” meaning “the Jewish People Live.” https://kimmonson.com/featured_articles/the-highest-use-of-the-good/?vgo_ee=pDHLWcES68IWqvrr0mTQLZwgfEmvi9O%2Fx2jf5PABff1SEw1pFC1vH5HA%3AeJLQ2TNP5wl88b%2Fgb6M6gRv5mB2Jm4ie

IR is the New AI

Artificial Intelligence, the ability of computers and software to research and consolidate incredible amounts of data and predictive analytics into a concise and clear response by making decisions or solving problems, is an incredible achievement for mankind. Though many fear this accomplishment of machine learning, I embrace it. Like all change which has the promise of good, if misused there is the potential for evil. This pair of opposites is the way technology has always worked. Yet, the so called “elites,” fearmongers, and those who look for problems to fix, like to abort creation before it has a chance to mature. I am not so naïve as to think human beings are not capable of doing evil. Just studying the 20th Century alone proves that man has a malevolent side. Yet, man also creates the aesthetic of beauty with art and architecture, with poetry, prose, and production. Just gaze at the fluid movement of a classic Greek sculpture like the Venus de Milo by Alexandros of Antioch or the magnificence of Michaelangelo’s David or the soaring faces of four monumental men carved by Gutzon Borglum on Mount Rushmore. The mind of man has always been the source of our wealth. Giant minds gathered in Philadelphia in 1776 to create a document for the ages. Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence manifests the exceptionalism of Americans who were first in recognizing the universal, equal natural rights of all men. Whether citizen or slave, sailor, or servant, the ideal that all men are created equal and that we are equally human is the pinnacle of modern man’s thought. No individual is more human than any other. No man has a right to have dominion over another. No other nation has ever abolished slavery in two generations from its founding. Our brethren in Europe, Asia, and Africa had eons of time to do the same. Government run by dictators, tyrants, and fools who did not or would not recognize these universal individual rights is the problem man has always faced. As human ingenuity and technology fuse even closer, it is still the individual that has inherent rights; rights from a creator not manufactured in a factory or given by the government to be controlled. Those worthies who read classic texts, wrote about timeless principles, and fused many of them together, prepared a nation to think and create a unique proposition; that individual rights are the new AI or as I see it, the new American Individualism. For the hundreds of years prior to the glorious creation of the United States of America, to the two-hundred and forty-eight years after, the world has benefited from knowing the principles this nation was founded upon. Our citizenship, our virtues, our morals, our ethics, and our choices have led to actions that have built a nation like no other. America is not perfect. We are flawed and have untold problems and opportunities. Yet the creation of America, with its grace, golden ideals, and grit have made American Individualism unique in the pantheon of human existence. There has been no other place like her and, most likely never will be. That is why she is worth preserving and defending. She, like the parchment her founders wrote upon, is fragile but she resides strongly in the hearts of her people. The moral concept of rights allows personal and intellectual property to flourish under the economic system of free market Capitalism. Collectivists have always tried to stamp out the flame of individualism under the auspices of the greater good. Yet, as Ayn Rand stated in Man’s Rights, “Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.” In other words, it is moral for individuals to trade value for value as perceived by the traders, not the intolerance of bureaucrats. There are those around us who clamor for someone to do something or create another law to impede freedom, or those who are waiting for a new type of leader to fix the problems we face. They should understand what defenders of rights know. The problem is not out there. The leader is not out there. The solution is not out there. The only thing that may save us from being defeated, is waiting for others to do what YOU must do to remain sovereign. Do something away from force and towards freedom that expands individual rights and concretizes the American individualism we are endowed with. How? We can do this by being better informed regarding the timeless freedom principles of Human Equality, Natural Rights, Government Secured Rights, Government by Consent, Limited Powers, Constitutional Government, Rule of Law, and Equal Protection of the Law. Knowing and using these ideas, one can help to persuade and influence in writing and speech, to protect individual rights. The historic default of man is not to take the proper course of action but to do what is expedient by using his natural inclination to take what is not his rather than trade and use his mind to advance his cause of Liberty. American Individualism articulates its ideas and persuades others to look forward. As Jefferson stated in his first inaugural address, “a wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry, and improvement and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government; and necessary to close the circle of our felicities." https://kimmonson.com/featured_articles/ir-is-the-new-ai/

The fear and reward of ‘Standing in the Gap’

By Bradley Beck | Special Contributor The almost empty Town Hall meeting room was soon to be filled with an angry mob. I was, to say the least, anxious. I arrived early so I could sign up to speak first, and get it over with. Just prior to me addressing the Town Council, a representative from Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development (CRED) asked if I would present the 300-plus signed petitions of my neighbors who were opposed to an upcoming fracking moratorium proposal in my town. This Town of Erie meeting 10 years ago was to consider banning new oil and gas development in our community. I could not sit on the sideline. Too much was at stake. The Town Trustees were under intense pressure from anti-energy development activists. It was an issue I was ready and willing to address. Energy production jobs were important to the local economy of our little town and to the livelihoods of thousands of individuals who worked in the energy sector in Colorado. Many were my friends. They lived in my community and had families to support. Energy was important to the lifestyle of my neighbors and myself – from heating a home on a minus-20 degree winter day to keeping food cool and fresh in a refrigerator on a sizzling 100-degree summer day. I approached the lectern first and made my three-minute presentation. Add to my trepidation a photographer in the room from a major newspaper. Following my speech, there were applause and jeers, but whatever I said got a positive reaction from the Town Trustees, someof whom were acquaintances. Why did I “stand in the gap”? Because it was the moral thing to do. I had skin in this game, as I worked at a spray paint company and our products were sourced from by-products of oil and gas. I felt certain that by showing up and speaking, I made a difference in how the vote went concerning the moratorium. It was over. Or, so I thought. The following day on my drive to work in Boulder, I nearly ran off the road as I caught a glimpse of a photograph of myself “above the fold” in the sidewalk newsstand of the Daily Camera. I grabbed a handful of quarters and bought the newspapers in the rack, so no one else coming into my work would see my picture. It didn’t work. When I arrived, lying on my desk was the front page of the same paper with a sticky note attached by my former boss. It read, “What’s this about?” I felt like Astro from the Jetsons, “Ruh Roh”. I was somewhat challenged by someone who wanted our company to lay low and not make any disturbances, less we wake the noisy few around us. I was even more determined to ruffle a few feathers. I did not always have this feeling of fortitude. I was more a “go along to get along” person. However, by reading, studying and associating with people who knew information I did not, I felt informed and emboldened. Seven years earlier, I received a phone call from my friend Don Beezley, who informed me he was going to run for Colorado House District 33, where he and I both lived. “Congratulations, Don,” I said. He replied, “Thanks, and I want you to be my financial guy for the campaign.” I continued, “Don, I know nothing about campaign finance.” With humor Don continued, “That’s OK. I mess up, you go to jail. It’s all good”. We both laughed, as I asked, ”When do you need to know?” His reply was, “Tomorrow”. “Ruh Roh”. I agreed to take on the task, but only if we hired a real campaign accounting firm to keep me out of jail. We did and thus began a journey in which we out-worked, out-walked and outwitted the incumbent opponent. Our campaign won that race by 217 votes. It was a squeaker, yet Don stood in the gap for two years slowing down the opposition craziness, and his own party at times. Don’s principles and integrity made my decision to work with him on his campaign an easy yes. Often, it’s the first follower who helps the leader make things happen. In this instance, I was “standing in the gap”. These two personal stories demonstrate how one or just a few people can make a difference. I don’t know if you have the fortitude or the desire to “stand in the gap”. However, I do know it can be done by ordinary people, who know they must do something to make a positive difference in defending the rights of the smallest minority there is, the individual. Here’s my challenge. Are you willing to “stand in the gap”? As Sam Parker reminds us in his book, “212”: “At 211 degrees, water is hot. At 212 degrees, it boils. And with boiling water, comes steam. And with steam, you can power a train”. Bradley Beck is a husband, father, GrandBrad, Distinguished Toastmaster, Optimist, and 360 Guy. He’s a special contributor to Rocky Mountain Voice. https://rockymountainvoice.com/2024/02/the-fear-and-reward-of-standing-in-the-gap/

Generosity

There is an old story about the lion, the wolf, and the dog. A lion seized upon a doe and was about to have it as a meal. As he was standing over his prize, a wolf stepped up to him, and impudently claimed to get halves. No! said the lion, you are too apt to take what is not your due. I therefore shall never have anything to do with you. In a commanding tone he said, “I insist on your immediate departure out of my sight.” A poor honest dog who happened to be passing by heard what was going on. He modestly withdrew, intending to go about another way upon which the lion kindly invited him to come forward and partake with him of the feast to which his modesty had given him so good a title. The lion was generous with his catch with the dog who recognized his modesty. The lion did not have to share, yet out of benevolence offered the dog some of his meal. The wolf, like the government, often demands and takes what is not theirs by the monopoly of force. Perhaps you have experienced where people left to their own devices are generous with what they produce or acquire through persistence and determination. For some, it is a good feeling they receive by investing in their fellow man or community out of benevolence or charity. For others it’s part of who they are, and the philanthropy built into their business. This is one reason profit is good for business and society. People earn money and can decide to give that money away after their needs are met. They can invest in their philanthropic endeavors. resQ coffees in Longmont, CO is a prime example of this. One morning Lynn was driving down to her coffee bean roasting business, resQ, when she saw the Liberty Toastmasters sign in front of the building where the club was meeting. A few minutes later she appeared with a carafe of uniquely roasted coffee along with cups, cream, stirrers, sugar, coffee tops, and mints; all delivered without expectation of payment and done with delight in giving. When I asked Lynn why she donates to so many other organizations she responded, “Giving is who we are. It’s part of our belief in investing in others.” Lynn, like many people, is authentic and sincere in her giving. People like Lynn, with their conviction and action, are rewarded enough by their generosity, unlike the wolf who commanded by force. Lynn and her company resQ are benevolent. They reap the rewards of giving because they want to, not because they must. It also makes for good business. I am now a customer of resQ coffees. My friend Terri presented a speech at a club contest titled, “People Just Give You Money?” Her speech was about her work at the Colorado Horse Rescue in Longmont, CO. It is a non-profit that started out as a shelter and rehabilitation facility that cared for abused and neglected horses. Today the organization also rehomes horses and educates equine enthusiasts. Terri says, “Think of giving to a non-profit as an investment in your beliefs. You invest, and they do the service that you believe needs to be done. Of course, you can’t invest until you’ve earned capital yourself.” When she is asked, “do people just give you money?” she replies, “No. People invest in a service that they see as important.” Terri understands the generosity of her donors and why they voluntarily give to her organization. Generosity is not just about giving money. For many, it is investing their time in their community service or service clubs. These organizations such as Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, and my personal favorite, Optimist International, are resources in their community focusing on local needs and take action to fill those needs. As an example, my service club the Optimist Club of Erie is known as “The Friend of Youth.” We focus all our efforts on providing youth in our town with scholarships, school programs, and support. The community can invest by participating in those events and our members invest their time in constructing and executing them. As volunteers we are generous with our time because we see an opportunity to be part of the fabric of our community. The more we do ourselves, the less we need government to intercede in areas where they need not tread. In Dr. Thomas Krannawitter’s book, “An Introduction to Citizenship for New Americans” he explains, the American people must pursue their civic virtues of self-restraint, self-assertion, civic knowledge, and self-reliance. “Political freedom requires limited government – that is, a government that for the most part leaves people alone, while ensuring that their rights are secured. But limited government is risky. When people are left alone, they might be tempted to violate the rights of others, or live irresponsibly, depending on others with money and resources to care for them.” People and organizations that provide a service or fill a need do not tend to not violate rights, rather to make their community a better place. People have all sorts of reasons for being generous with their time, treasure, and talent. If they do their giving without the coercion of force, they are moral and decent in their pursuits. Once someone or a society has an “impudent claim to go halves” and are “too apt to take what is not their due” they become a society that is corrupt, immoral, and evil. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once stated, “Generosity wins favor for everyone. Especially when it is accompanied by modesty.” Bradley is a Husband, Father, GrandBrad, Toastmaster-DTM, Optimist & 360 Guy. He lives in Boulder County. https://kimmonson.com/featured_articles/generosity/?vgo_ee=hm3HHFeYEZDfQjEARd5DLO2B9RGN%2BlsTZNCCsvypdCH%2F6CPdtqVEW9vU%3AkhF7X99PiF4z3OBthDE%2FYYY18zBiUZHl

Reflections

A dog was carrying a piece of meat in his mouth to eat at home. On his way he had to cross a plank lying across a running brook. As he crossed, he looked down and saw his reflection in the water beneath. Reacting as if it was another dog with a piece of meat, the dog snapped at the reflection in the water and by doing so opened his mouth and the meat fell out, dropping into the water never to be seen again. There are many morals to this old story such as, “If you covet, you may lose all.” Or “It is very foolish to be greedy.” The moral I like best is, “beware lest you lose the real thing by grasping at its reflection.” Our ideas of a good life are often a reflection of our culture, the influence of others in our social groups or our consumption of siloed media. I feel a sense of loss for the younger generations who live in the era of computers, gaming, and Artificial Intelligence, who never experienced the analog world. The joy of playing hide and seek outside, the journey of one’s mind writing in cursive and sending a letter in the mail and then waiting for a reply. The pleasure of listening to an album on a record player and reading the liner notes. The discussion of ideas that took place at the dinner table with family, rather than the mindless scrolling on smart phones. Reading a hardcover book and smelling the ink of the pages waft in the air as you turn them. Or finding a treasured old tome with musky pages and imbibing the prudence of the past. I enjoy the innovation that technology has brought for the betterment of life. Better medicine, better information, better transportation, better communication, better opportunities. Yet, there is something about the virtue of the past that I hold passionately onto. Our nature as humans does not change. That is the one constant we find as we look back in history and see the humanity of our ancestors through story, song, and sagacity. Those that think human nature changes are like the dog snapping at its reflection. The end of the year is a good time for reflection. It is a time when we bend back our thoughts and intentions and ruminate on the actions we did and did not take. I think about how dedicated I was to uphold the positive philosophy of the past while embracing the nutrients of the new year. Did I make a positive progression towards my intention? Did I make the right choices to advance the one or two classic ideas I wanted to implement that would help me succeed and thrive? Or was I too busy trying to gather up someone else’s reflection of who and what I should be? Jimmy Buffett had a lyric in a song he sang that goes, “only time will tell.” Perhaps, that is the only thing we can be judged on. Did we do what was best for the advancement of the good, the true, and the beautiful? Or were we wrapped up in ruling others rather than taking stock on what we could do best as individuals to advance ourselves, and thereby humanity. In advance of the Jewish New Year Rosh Ha Shanna, literally meaning head of the new year, Jews reflect, and repent for their transgressions. The shofar, a ram’s horn made into a musical instrument, is blown as a symbolic “wake up call” from slumber. The sound reminds one to examine and conduct oneself so they may be written into the “Book of Life” for the coming year. As you enter this New Year, it’s an opportune time to start your own personal “wake-up call” and make an old tradition new again. Give yourself the gift of doing those things that brought humanity to the dance. I am committing to opening each day with a mantra, prayer, or time to listen to my own breath. To write and read daily. To prepare and think thoughtfully to enable to create intentionally. To look to do something useful or thoughtful for someone else. To make someone smile each day. And to be intentional in what I do. Giving myself thirty days to make each of these things a habit can help make them repeatable. Focusing on my desire to make it a habit increases my chances of repeating the next day. As I look back on this year’s successes, I continue to build up my strengths and work on those things I wish to improve day by day. I am aware of the day’s news, yet I refuse to be dragged into the muck of the world. I can have a positive mindset and impact myself by demonstrating what is possible for me by working to be the best I can be. To slow down to speed up in the coming year and not let the illusion of others deflect my focus. The world advances sometimes for good, and sometime not, yet as Thomas Paine once stated, “The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. Happy New Year! https://kimmonson.com/featured_articles/reflection/?vgo_ee=43w9SD5lCV9GFMr7P93KT2ZT9Ki4PETUjFfhFeWeMHlwyaDfuEs2OxOy%3AeaSS20nB6zVIdNglqKZlK%2Fx7N76HTLP1

Listen Before You Leap

“The Frogs and the Well,” is an old Aesop Fable in which two frogs lived together in a marsh. But one hot summer day the marsh dried up and they left it to look for another place to live, for frogs like damp places if they can get them. By and by they came to a deep well and one of them looked down into it and said to the other, “This looks like a nice cool place. Let us jump into it and settle here.” But the other, who had a wiser head on his shoulders replied, “Not so fast, my friend. Supposing this well dried up like the marsh, how should we get out again?” The moral of the story, listening to others’ ideas may be better than your own. I have struggled with the issue of listening for years. My first-grade report card stated that “Bradley is loquacious.” I always preferred talking to listening. My wife will heartly agree. A physician will use auscultation, the act of listening for sounds made by internal organs, such as the heart or lungs, to help diagnosis a patient’s health. This process of listening to body sounds derives from the Latin auscultare, to listen attentively. An auto mechanic will use their listening skills to identify and diagnose the root cause of a car problem to see if your vehicle has a fast idle, an increased idle speed that occurs for short periods of time after a cold engine starts to improve drivability and speed engine warm up;or detonation, a rapid, uncontrolled combustion of the air-fuel mixture in the cylinder that results in a hard, rattling sound. A male will listen to his female partner who will tell him about a problem or an issue she is having and more times than not, the male will try to find a solution to her problem because he’s internally wired differently than she is. She will be speaking, and he will be listening, yet she is not being heard. Unlike the physician and the auto mechanic, who are trying to fix a problem, the female partner may just wish to talk something through or explain something that is affecting her. She just wants someone to listen to her. Of course, I am writing in generalities compared to the first two examples, however, my experience confirms this. In my Roget’s Thesaurus I find the term hearing as a verb, a word that in syntax generally conveys an action such as, to listen, attend, lend an ear, bend an ear, tune in, give a hearing to, give audience to, prick up one’s ears, be all ears. Therefore, listening can be an active endeavor that requires the one receiving the words spoken to be attentive, open, and not respond. This is a skill that takes practice and repetition to master. Acknowledging this is a good first step, says my wife. As a member of Liberty Toastmasters, I practice and refine my listening skills. The roles of evaluator, general evaluator, grammarian, ah-counter, and the audience members help me learn to hear what a speaker says, and report back what I heard them say. In fact, only a third of the time in a Toastmasters meeting do members speak, yet it is known as the premiere “public speaking” organization. Perhaps it should be rebranded as the “premier listening” organization. Imagine if businesspeople, educators, politicians, media, and public policy influencers spent more time practicing the skill of listening to others rather than spouting off on ideas and issues they have an opinion about. Think how much richer our dialog could be listening to ideas based on principles and not opinions. Imagine civil dialogs and debates rather than uninformed diatribes and noise that divides. I once had the opportunity to hear Jonathan Haidt speak at CU Boulder. He is a social psychologist and co-founder of the Heterodox Academy which is committed to advancing the principles of open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement to improve higher education and academic research. Haidt realizes that for him to have a beneficial debate, he needs an opposing argument with someone who can articulate ideas that can help him be a more critical thinker. Haidt co-wrote The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. In that book he says, “Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make people think.” Listening facilitates the opportunity to think and thereby act, more prudently. The next time you are looking to jump into a new well, think about the two frogs. https://kimmonson.com/featured_articles/listen-before-you-leap/?vgo_ee=zCdIUUMY0jPQ6Iv2PpAi8%2Fv3WtzLe1nyXQqDMrMFNX8nGv%2BOiZINbTnT%3AGQy1%2B1clEuOuGvxcz1C8%2F3yuZcDTkK81