What Comes and Goes

We all have a lot of different thoughts and feelings about a lot of different things. We are not accountable to anyone for what comes and goes in our heads, for what comes and goes in our hearts, nor is anyone else accountable to us for what comes and goes in theirs. No one has the right to know what we are thinking or feeling unless we choose to tell them. Neither do we have the right to know or judge anyone else’s thoughts or feelings.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

It Might Be Different

Of course, people can change their minds or their feelings might be different, if they get more information, have new experiences, or see a different way of looking at something. If someone tells us what they think or feel, we can tell them, show them, or explain what we think or feel, and that could happen. Or, they might do that for us. But that is a choice that people make -- whether to tell someone else what they think or feel.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Don't Reject

If someone does tell us what they think or feel, or if we tell them, it doesn’t do any good to deny or reject those thoughts or feelings. Hearing, “You shouldn’t think like that” doesn’t keep it from happening. Telling someone, “You shouldn’t feel that way” doesn’t change how they feel. And, if that’s what we get, why would we reveal our thoughts or feelings?

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Feelings Make Life Worth Living

Luckily, my feelings work for me most of the time. Most of the time, I do the right thing and work toward a goal with people I like. There is nothing better than doing something you love with someone you love. Then feelings make life worth living!

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Feelings Just Are

At least in my case, feelings are not always a positive basis for action. I disliked a woman once, just because she reminded me of someone else. I had strong negative feelings about her that really had little to do with her. I have also loved people dearly who didn’t love me back or have my best interest at heart. I don’t worry about those feelings anymore. They just are. I might wonder about them, where they come from, but no one can demand an explanation of me. It’s my mystery to figure out or not. I just know that before I speak or act, I have to have more to go on than feelings. I have to have figured out whether what I say or what I do is right and whether it helps me accomplish my goals.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Feelings

Neither are we accountable for our feelings. Feelings, too, are built from everything we’ve learned and everything we’ve experienced and are necessary for us to do the right thing and accomplish all our goals. In fact, feelings are what make doing the right thing and accomplishing goals enjoyable. But, people talk about “controlling” our feelings or our emotions, as if we could keep from having them. I do not think we can. We can control our words and our actions. We can choose not to speak from our emotions, we can choose not to act on our feelings.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Whatever Comes Into Their Heads

We need to allow all this for ourselves and for everyone else. Everyone can think whatever comes into their heads. No one can stop us from thinking anything at all; nor can we stop anyone else -- even if we do say sometimes, “Don’t even think about it!”

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Hastings, Tramway & Candelaria, Friday, Feb 27

Book Signing
Friday, February 27, 2009
5:30 PM to 9:30 PM

Hastings
12501 Candelaria Road NE
Albuquerque, NM 87111
(505) 332-8855

Local Authors!

David Corwell
Cloaked in Shadow
Dark Tales of Elves

Lela Belle Wolfert
Wishes in the Wind

Marianne Powers
Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time


Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Authors for Literacy at Moriarty Library Sat Feb 21

Visit one-on-one with more than 20 published NM authors at the Moriarty Civic Center on February 21, 2009 from 9am-4pm! The event is FREE! Proceeds from book and food sales go to the Read'Write' Adult Literacy Program and the Moriarty Community Library. For more information call the Library at 505-832-2513.

Moriarty Civic Center
202 Broadway
Moriarty, NM USA 87035


Local Authors!

Kathy Barco
David Corwell
Jerry R. Davis
Mark David Gerson
Melody Groves
Kirt Hickman
Michelle J. Holtby
Sheila Key
Susan McDuffie
Jonathan Miller
Ronn Perea
Marianne Powers
Joan Spicci Saberhagen
Mary E. Snyder
Peggy Spencer
Ben Steinlage
Sarah Storme
Lucretia Tippit
Robert J. Torrez
Robert Vardeman
Gary Wilson
Lela Belle Wolfert

Minds Wide Open

We can even indulge in ridiculous and incredible thoughts to keep our minds wide open and nurture our imagination and creativity. And it seems, too, that it is OK to have angry feelings and for aggressive thoughts to play themselves out in fantasy in our minds. We can enjoy for a moment the imagined discomfort of those who have hurt us, intentionally or not, without any real harm to ourselves or to them.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

All the Possibilities

We think about all the possibilities and what the results might be. We remember what happened before and what we have heard happened to other people. In our thoughts is the proper place for us to rehearse what we want to say and do. We can think about what effect our actions will have on other people and make the proper adjustments in order to do the right thing and accomplish all our goals. We believe something is possible and are inspired to make it happen. We know there is danger and guard against it. We make Plan A and back it up with Plan B.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Infinite Variety

Thoughts come to us out of everything we’ve ever learned and everything we’ve ever experienced. We put them together with new learning and new experiences. And we imagine things we’ve never learned or experienced. As they say on Star Trek, “infinite variety in infinite combinations.”

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

No Thought Police

No one has a right or responsibility to demand to know or try to guess what we are thinking or feeling in order to criticize, condemn, or punish us. We are not accountable to others for our thoughts. There are no thought police. There might be some “what I think you are thinking” police, but that is wrong on two counts -- first because we should not be held accountable for what we think and second because nobody knows what we are thinking.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Understanding and Assistance

Thoughts and feelings are things we share with people who care about us and our well-being. If we have thoughts or feelings that trouble us, we can talk them over with other people and they can help us figure out what makes us feel that way. Then we may consider whether there is a different way to look at the situation, or what actions we might take. We need to tell other people our thoughts and feelings when we want their understanding or assistance.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

People Are Not Accountable for Thoughts and Feelings

Unlike what we say and do, what we think and feel are not choices that we make. We are not accountable to other people for them nor are they accountable to us. Our thoughts and feelings affect other people only if we put them into words or actions. It is true that thinking and feeling usually come before speaking or doing. Still, we have many thoughts, but we don’t say them all. We have many feelings, but we don’t act on them all.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Authors for Literacy at Moriarty Library Sat Feb 21

Visit one-on-one with more than 20 published NM authors at the Moriarty Civic Center on February 21, 2009 from 9am-4pm! The event is FREE! Proceeds from book and food sales go to the Read'Write' Adult Literacy Program and the Moriarty Community Library. For more information call the Library at 505-832-2513.

Moriarty Civic Center
202 Broadway
Moriarty, NM USA 87035


Local Authors!

Kathy Barco
David Corwell
Jerry R. Davis
Mark David Gerson
Melody Groves
Kirt Hickman
Michelle J. Holtby
Sheila Key
Susan McDuffie
Jonathan Miller
Ronn Perea
Marianne Powers
Joan Spicci Saberhagen
Mary E. Snyder
Peggy Spencer
Ben Steinlage
Sarah Storme
Lucretia Tippit
Robert J. Torrez
Robert Vardeman
Gary Wilson
Lela Belle Wolfert


Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

They Know Themselves Best

Being able to predict what other people will do is useful to us. But sometimes we carry it too far. In order to really know someone, we would probably have had to live with them their whole lives and experienced everything they’ve experienced. We can’t do that, so we try to take a shortcut by putting people in a category with other people we have known or even people we’ve imagined to be “like them”. But, we really don’t know most other people very well. Each person knows himself best. When we want to know what other people are capable of achieving, we need to give them the opportunity, get out of their way, and pay attention, or ask them!

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Let Them Speak for Themselves

People should never be limited by their “classification”. They can speak for themselves. People can tell you what they think they are capable of and what they are willing to try to do. Even when deciding what their physical capabilities are, you have to ask people if they can do something instead of looking at them and deciding for yourself, and, in the workplace at least, you are required by law to do so. It is just as true that you should not decide that someone can’t do something because you don’t think they have the intelligence or the will or the personality for it. You have to ask.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Hexabrachus sanguineas

The second problem is that classifying something also limits your expectations of it. Once you know it’s a slug, you know it can’t dance. Even if it seems to be dancing, you know it’s an illusion, because slugs can’t dance. You can’t teach a slug to dance either, because it is not capable of it. (But, then again, have you ever seen a Hexabranchus sanguineus?)

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

People Like Them

I know that I have put people in boxes, too, and put a lid on them and nailed them down and painted numbers on them and color-coded them! In fact, the first thing I always wanted to do when I met someone was figure out what box they belonged in, so I would know how to relate to them. I can’t honestly say that I have been able to stop doing that completely. But now, if I put people in boxes at all, they are boxes with low sides and no tops that they can decorate however they choose, and they can step right out of them easily anytime. I am ready for people to act differently than I thought they would act or than they have acted in the past or than “people like them” act.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

People Like Me

After a while, it came to me that this man didn’t know me better than I knew myself. There was just no way that he could. He was talking about “people like me”. He had put me in some category of people in his own mind -- people good with computers, people who don’t know much about people, people without any training in counseling or teamwork, people who wouldn’t know how to get a group of other people to talk to each other and figure out how to work together to get a job done. But he was wrong about me, I didn’t belong in that box. Because my life has been different than “people like me” and, as it happens, I do have that ability! So, I told him so and then I proved it.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Don't Stay in a Box

I found myself in a box one time. I could clearly see that it was a box that someone else had put me in and not one I had jumped in myself. I could see that it had little to do with me and what I was really capable of and had everything to do with what someone else said I was capable of.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Don't Keep People in a Box

In reality, hardly anyone is “nice” all the time. And almost everyone says or does something “stupid” sometime. What seems like very bad judgment could be a lack of experience, easily overcome with time. People do learn. People do grow. And, more than that, they put things together and have epiphanies and suddenly become brilliant! Even if we could figure someone else out in less than a lifetime, people don’t really fit in neat boxes. If we pay attention, we can see that they are constantly getting out of the boxes they are put in. If we haven’t seen them doing it, it might just be that the sides of our boxes are too high for us to get a good look!

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Boxes

Now, I don’t believe that they really knew all about the other person in a few seconds, any more than I did in a few days. But I believe that in a few seconds, or a few days, we had made our decision and assigned the other person to a box. We treated them then like we treated everyone else in that box, and they acted like everyone else in that box, or so it seemed to us.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Problems with Classifying People

There are two problems with classifying people. The first is that we are often so very bad at it. It takes a lifetime for a person to become what they are, and most of us never stop “becoming”. Yet one person might try to classify another after being introduced and shaking their hand. I have known people who were proud of their ability to size people up instantly. Of course, they always turned out to be right about the person. I was always amazed, because I didn’t have that ability myself – I was slow, it usually took me a few days to figure someone out.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Classifying People

Similarly, we seem to want to classify other people, in order to know what to expect from them and how to “handle” them. We spend some amount of time figuring them out, listening to them and observing them, and then we put them in a box with the other people that seem to be like them. We decide, “He’s nice,” and expect him to be nice all the time. We decide, ”She’s stupid,” and don’t expect anything intelligent to come out of her. We even classify ourselves, so that other people know what to expect from us (or what we want them to think we are doing). We say, “I’m a hard worker” or “I’m very loyal,” hoping that they will put us in a good box.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

True Names

I read once about a tribe that believes that if you know a thing’s true name, you have power over it. They never tell anyone their true name. They all have another name that they use in public. In some ways, I think they are right. If you know an animal’s scientific name, for example, you can get a lot of information on it. You can find out where it lives, what it eats, and its expected lifespan, how to trap and kill it or how to help it flourish. If you know a plant’s scientific name, you can find out if it is nutritious or poisonous and how to get it to grow or wipe it out. When you know what something is called, you can find out anything that anybody has ever found out and written about it, not just what you are able to observe yourself, so you do have more information.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Page One Bookstore, Saturday, February 7

The first Saturday of the month!

That's when Page One Bookstore hosts their local author book fair in the Brew Moon Cafe from 3:00 to 5:00 PM.

Page One is at the corner of Montgomery and Juan Tabo in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I'll see you there!

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com