My Conversation With Tenjin

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: Wonderings and Wanderings

Competencies: adaptability/stress tolerance, resilience, leadership, performance management, managing self, self-development, painting a vision, self-control

Who benefits: there is something here for all of us to think about

Consultant Usage: background material

What’s it about?  Today’s post is by a guest.  His name is Inman Moore.  He is a friend and I have known him a long time.  Inman is a bit of a philosopher in an era when scary headlines often dominate our thinking and deep-thought receives short shrift.  He wrote the following piece for a small publication in Pasadena, California and has allowed me to publish a slightly edited version today.

I wanted it for today because we are entering a creepy, frightening two week period that has many of us treading lightly.  Next week is (quaking) Halloween and the week after are the national elections in the United States.  If ever there was a time to be afraid – be very afraid – it is now.  But Inman sheds a very bright light on a four letter “f” word – Fear – and leaves us with a very important reminder.  Inman, thank you for this important essay.  Readers – please put on your thinking caps and consider his thoughts for a few moments:

I live just a block from Caltech, the greatest university in the world according to a recent national survey.  From time to time I take a walk through the campus.  Caltech has a wonderful little garden on the south end of the quad area that, for many years, was called Dabney Garden.  It has recently been renamed Garden of the Associates, but I shall forever think of it as Dabney Garden.  It has a number of old Olive Trees and various kinds of shrubbery, plus benches where you can sit, relax, and meditate.  But the dominant feature of the garden is a half-ton bronze statue of Tenjin, a 9th Century Japanese patron of scholars and writers.  He is mounted “side saddle” on a water buffalo and reading a book.  It is a marvelous statue!

I have often sat near Tenjin and carried on a conversation with him about how things as they are and ought to be.  I recently asked him about the present status of America.  He sighed and said, “Fear.”  I responded, “What do you mean by that?”  He replied, “America’s 2012 budget has over $1 trillion for the military, homeland security, and additional military expenditures, and there is talk of increasing the military spending.  This spending is largely driven by fear.  Fear that some other country might get stronger, even though America spends more on military and security than all the other nations of the world put together.  Fear from the rich that someone is going to take all their money.  Fear from the middle class that they are about to be wiped out.  Fear from the poor that they might not have a place to live and no food on the table.  Fear of other races and religions.  Fear that someone will go crazy and drop an atomic bomb.  Fear that someone, somewhere, and sometime is out to get us.”

I replied, “But Tenjin, these things could happen!  The rich might lose their money.  The middle-class might be wiped out.  The poor might starve, and someone might drop a bomb at any time.”  “Yes, they might,” said Tenjin.  “And, by the way, I forgot all the other things to fear, such as: a bathroom accident; death on the highway; the vagaries of nature; and all sorts of health problems.  These are just a few of the things to fear.  The total list is much longer.  For example, think of all the pigeon droppings I have had to endure over the years here in Dabney Garden!  You can spend your whole lifetime fearing something.  But you don’t solve any of your problems by being fearful.  Concern? Yes! But not fear.  You had a famous president in America many years ago who said, ‘There is nothing to fear but fear itself.’  You solve problems by looking them straight in the eye without fear and optimistically working for an answer.  And the answers never come by trying to live in the past.  Problems are never solved by fleeing to the past.  The past is a point of no return.

You Americans had a TV show years ago called Star Trek.  Their motto was, ‘To boldly go where no man has gone before.’  The answers are found by working together and looking to the future.  By realizing that good government is really all of you doing things together that you cannot do alone.  By understanding that you are your brother’s keeper.  By realizing that success is not measured by how much money you have, but by being an individual that contributes to the well-being of all human kind, such as: teachers, ministers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, house wives or house husbands, social workers, restaurant and hotel workers, factory workers, bankers, dentists, artists, musicians, and politicians, as well as executives of great corporations or the president of your country.  So, don’t fear the future.  Be optimistic!” 

I thought for a few moments and began to realize that Tenjin was on to something very valuable.  So, I thanked Tenjin for his wisdom and went out of the garden resolved in my own way to work together for progress for the entire human race while facing the future unafraid.  In religious circles there is an old story that “Fear knocked at the door.  Faith answered, and no one was there.”

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.