Mindful Attention

As a result of frequent business travel during the major part of my career, I have been witness to an array of cringe-inducing behaviors at airports and rental car locations. In some cases, it’s seeing the results of behaviors that most likely happened away from the prying eyes of travelers.

I remembered one such experience that I had several years ago while picking up my checked luggage at a destination airport. When my hard-shell luggage showed up on the conveyor belt, I couldn’t believe what my eyes were beholding. It had a huge dent on one corner and looked as if it has been through a tornado, hurricane and an earthquake all rolled into one.

It was almost brand new when I handed it over to the gate agent while checking in a few hours earlier. Why was it now looking like I’ve been using it for a hundred years! I was so sad at the sight that I almost didn’t want to pick it up from the carousel. But I had to! I didn’t have a choice since everything I needed for that 3-day trip was inside.

I took pictures of the dent and filed a claim with American Airlines. At the end, they couldn’t (or didn’t want to) do anything. I still have that piece of luggage today (I rarely use it anymore), so I remember this experience anytime I see it with that ugly dent.

Because of this experience and a few others, I’ve often wondered why it is difficult for baggage handlers to treat passenger bags with careful and mindful attention each time. If they do, nobody’s luggage would end up dented or destroyed, would it? At least, that’s what I thought.

Then one day, a thought occurred to me. It was a true eye-opener.

As a passenger, my piece of checked baggage is unique and special to me. Afterall, I took great care in packing it for my travel. But to the baggage handlers, my luggage is just one in a sea of several hundreds or thousands that they will process and handle any given day. So, to them, mine doesn’t stand out. There’s nothing special about it.

You could ask the guy who mindlessly threw or shoved my bag from one conveyor belt to another how it got its big, ugly dent, and he won’t be able to tell you what happened to it. The damage most likely happened in the process of engaging in the repetitive motions that moved thousands of bags along to their various intended destinations.

As I found myself silently accusing and resenting these faceless handlers of maltreating my luggage, I began to wonder if I pay the same mindful attention that I’m expecting of others to my own tasks - especially the ones that require mindless, repetitive motions.

The unfortunate truth is that I do not; at least not all the time. My guess is that the same applies to you.

But can you imagine how much heartaches we can avoid if we take just a moment to be mindful of our actions, no matter how repetitive or habitual they are? Those actions may not be serving us (or others) well, yet we continue with them because we do them without thinking.

So, this is my simple question for you this week: What habitual, repetitive action or behavior would you rethink?

The End of Thinking

About a month ago, I decided to see what all the fuss was about with the new chatbot everyone was talking about. So, I entered a simple request into ChatGPT's text box:

Write a short review for the book "Nothing Higher."

It came back with a statement that there are many books with that title, so it didn't know which one I was referring to. I modified the request to:

Write a short review for the book "Nothing Higher" by Sunday Faronbi.

In less than 10 seconds, it spat out the following:

"Nothing Higher" by Sunday Faronbi is a powerful and thought-provoking book that challenges readers to question their beliefs and values. The author shares personal stories, insights, and reflections on various aspects of life, such as love, spirituality, success, and purpose. Faronbi's writing style is engaging and conversational, making it easy for readers to connect with his message. The book is not just a self-help guide, but also an inspiring call to action for readers to live a meaningful and fulfilling life. Overall, "Nothing Higher" is an excellent read for anyone seeking personal growth and a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them.

On the surface, this seemed like an okay review. But I immediately noticed something that was missing from it.

Given that the main subject of the book is humility, I was surprised that the word did not show up in the chatbot-generated review - not even once. Not a single one of the 104 words it came up with was "humility," "humble," or any of its other synonyms.

That immediately made me suspicious of how useful this thing is. Of course, it didn't actually read "Nothing Higher" before spitting out that review. It couldn't have. It would have been impressive if it had done that, but it didn't. It most likely just scoured the internet for reviews that others have written about the book and then came up with its own version of a review.

Despite my skepticism, many others were already touting how incredibly intuitive and smart ChatGPT was before I gave it a try. It was said to have passed a final exam in the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School's MBA program. Others said they've used it to write code in different programming languages. Some claimed to have used it to write cover letters for job applications.

While these feats are impressive, I have bigger concerns than the fact that its review of a book on humility did not include words like "humble" or "humility." Can you tell I'm still hung up on that?

Yes, I am, but I've got a bigger fish to fry with this bot. I think it will erode away one of the key things that make us human.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, says its mission is "to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity." Honestly, I'm skeptical about how well that mission will be realized.

While there may be some immediate benefits, I seriously doubt that the long-term impact of chatbots like this would be beneficial to humanity. And I have good reasons for this, so bear with me as I explain my thoughts.

With all that ChatGPT has been able to do within the first few months of its release, this is only just the beginning. Models like this are designed to continuously learn and refine the quality of what they produce. In fact, OpenAI has already released GPT-4, which it claimed on its website, "surpasses ChatGPT in its advanced reasoning capabilities." GPT-4 is now available with a US$20 monthly subscription.

As you can imagine, other companies wouldn't want to be left behind, especially when they can cash in huge with subscriptions. Microsoft invested heavily in Open AI (rumors say the investment is up to US$10 billion) and is now using ChatGPT in its Bing search engine. Last week, I received an email from Google asking me to sign up for Bard, its chatbot version. You may have received a similar invitation.

Other tech giants may be coming up with their own iterations soon. What this means is that the rat race has already begun with each chatbot trying to outdo the others. I won't be surprised if they start trashing one another in their responses.

But here's why I think this bot race will be harmful to humanity: we could eventually lose our ability to think.

Thinking isn't something many of us tend to do regularly, but having these AI bots will only exacerbate an already bad problem. Our higher ability to think is one major things that distinguishes us from other animals. Once we stop exercising our thought muscles, atrophy would set in, and I’m afraid the human race will just get dumber and dumber.

The smart ones amongst us have tapped into the power of creative thinking to create AI systems like ChatGPT and others like it. Interestingly enough, these chatbots could end up causing us to lose the creative thinking potential that created them. If that's not self-destruction, I don't know what is.

I'm not trying to be a prophet of doom, but it seems to me that if we're not careful, this particular move towards AI chatbots may actually portent the end of human thinking.

It could be the end of humanity as we know it.

So, how will you ensure that your mind doesn’t fall victim to the coming onslaught of AI chatbots?

What intentional creative thinking exercises are you doing to guarantee that your mind stays sharp?

Stubborn Weeds

In the middle of the United States where I live, the summer heat can be brutal. Most people who are not familiar with the midwestern part of the country tend to be surprised that we get the two extremes of temperatures each year.

It can be as hot as 100°F (roughly 37.8°C) in July/August during the peak of summer. Yet, roughly 6 months later during the coldest of winter, high daily temperatures can dip to 0°F (-17.8°C) or less. Factor in the wind chills and you could turn into a popsicle within a few minutes if you get caught outside in those frigid temperatures.

For those of us who live in the suburbs, our lawns usually take a beating during those summer months of insane heat. The luscious green turns into a field of dry, bristle brown grass. Last week, as I surveyed my yard, I couldn't help but notice a few patches of green in some spots. Closer examinations reveal what those green patches were.

Weeds!

I'm one person who is fastidious about ensuring that things stay where they belong. And I definitely don't think weeds belong on my lawn. So, I tend to follow a strict regimen of weeding and feeding my lawn each year.

But no matter how much effort I put into it, a few of the weeds would simply not go away. You get rid of them in one spot and they sprout up in another. The most perplexing of it all is that even during the summer heat when most of the grass is dying from thirst, the few weeds tend to thrive and blossom.

A few days ago, I went around the yard, manually uprooting the weeds within my field of vision. As I did this, I couldn't help but think about the ones I couldn't get to because of time. I hadn't planned on pulling out weeds at that time, I just couldn't stand the thought of leaving them there any longer.

I also wondered about how long it would be before they grow back.

Soon, this got me thinking about habits and how they're so difficult to get rid of once they are formed. Also, for some reason, it seems bad, unwanted habits tend to form easily, just like those weeds. They creep in unawares and before you know it, they’ve taken over your life.

Do you pay attention to those things you tend to do repeatedly without much thought? That's basically what habits are. And because we don't think really into those behaviors, we most likely do not recognize whether or not they're serving us.

My challenge for you this week is that you simply begin paying attention to your habits. I'm sure you've probably developed a few good ones. Do you know what they are? What benefits do they bring you?

Take stock and identify the benefits you get from your good habits.

What about the bad ones? Do you have any of those? If you can't think of any, I suggest you ask those closest to you - that's if you're brave enough. Most of us don't like others pointing out our bad habits. But I think you'll be doing yourself a world of good if you embrace this from time to time and ask those who know you best.

After all, you can't begin to change something if you don't know how it's impeding your progress. And I'm sure you don't want anything to cut short your life’s success.

Do you?

Comfort in the Wrong Places

I called an old friend a couple of weeks ago to ask how he was doing. He responded, "it's been crazy-busy."

Over the years, I've found out that this same sentiment seems to be the typical response many of us give to the question, "How are you?"

Ask anyone how things are going and the reply tends to range from busy to very busy with everything in-between. Other times, we go on about how much we run helter-skelter from one thing to another on a daily basis.

Everyone seems to be busy these days. Or maybe some of us are just pretending to be busy.

Whatever is driving our need to be busy or to appear busy, it seems to me that the root of this is our need to feel important; to be worthy. Important people are always busy doing something, right? They're not idle.

This is a lie many have bought into.

It seems to me that we numb our feelings of unworthiness with work and staying busy. We think that if we stay busy enough, the real truth of our lives won't catch up with us.

Some have used other equally dangerous means for numbing - illegal drugs, prescription drugs, alcohol, food, sex, sports, online gaming, social media, and a few other good things that we can use in negative ways. We can use these to numb the pains that come from our feelings of inadequacy.

While many of the things we use to numb ourselves may not be bad in themselves, the reason we use them is the real difference. In her book, The Life Organizer, Jennifer Louden says we use these things as "shadow comforts." We think they're providing us with momentary comfort, but in reality, they're just casting their long shadows over our miserable lives.

Louden writes: "You can eat a piece of chocolate as a holy wafer of sweetness - a real comfort, or you can cram an entire chocolate bar into your mouth without even tasting it in a frantic attempt to soothe yourself - a shadow comfort."

So, it's not really what you do. It's your reason for doing it.

It's therefore important for us to start thinking about the motivation behind the choices we make. This requires a great deal of reflection and self-examination. Unfortunately, these are two things many of us don't do very well, so it takes being intentional to pull them off.

Here are three ways to approach this: 

1. Carve out regular time to think and reflect. Ask yourself what you're using for numbing and why. Are you working hard to avoid a difficult conversation with people closest to you? Are you using fast food to get shadow comfort as an escape from your feelings of inadequacy? Only you can answer that for yourself. And you should be brutally honest with yourself.

2. Consider what you can use to replace your current sources of shadow comfort. Could it be a healthy snack instead of comfort food? Could you take a walk, and get some fresh air instead of indulging in video games for hours on end?

3. Find a trusted accountability partner. Share your struggles with someone and tell them what you've decided to do. Ask them to hold you accountable in your quest to replace current sources of shadow comfort.

What's really important is for you to consider if your current behavioral choices are truly nourishing your spirit or if they are temporary reprieves providing shadow comfort, which ultimately leaves you feeling empty.

You owe it to yourself to find out and pursue living a life that is truly worthy of your standing and stature.

And you truly are worthy.

Do the necessary

Photo by Kid Circus on Unsplash

During a 7-hour road-trip back home with my wife a couple of days ago, something on the highway caught my attention.

Going westbound on Interstate-70 between St. Louis and Kansas City, I noticed the words on a large digital display on the highway. It flashed: 645 deaths on Missouri roads this year. 67% unbuckled.

As I saw those numbers, they got me thinking. 67% of 645.
That's roughly 432 people.

I'm certain some of these 432 deaths could have been prevented if those people had been wearing their seat belts.

Soon, I began to wonder why some people don't wear seat belts when in a moving vehicle. My mind strolled to a manager I had about 15 years ago. He was one of those who did not wear seat belts. I think he made him feel less macho.

I've heard so many excuses for not wearing a seat belt.

It's uncomfortable.
It doesn't fit because I'm too large.
It makes me feel restrained.
I may get stuck in a crashed car.

I chuckle at that last excuse because you're more likely to die in a crash without a seat belt. So, I would think getting stuck when in a crash should be the least of anyone's worries.

Many of these people do not deny the life-saving benefits of wearing a seat belt, but they have their reasons for not strapping themselves in. With those reasons (I think they're just excuses), they put their own lives at risk.

Same goes for anyone who knows the right things to do to live a thriving and flourishing life. They know and understand the immense benefits of changing their thinking and their behaviors. They're just not willing to do it; and they have seemingly good reasons too. With those reasons, they put their lives (and their careers, in particular) at risk.

Is that you? Are you taking such a risk?

Just imagine how much better your life and your relationships would be, if you put to practice even 10% of what you know you ought to be doing. It could be the difference between thriving and just getting by.

So, I ask you - Are you willing to do what is necessary? Don't be a casualty on life's highway just because you're unwilling to do what you know you should be doing.

Step up to the plate and act now.