Lives In Progress

“Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.”   Simone deBeauvoir

An individual’s mind set has been found to be a powerful driver of perceptions about self and others as well as one’s capabilities and place in the world."They guide the whole interpretation process," according to researcher Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

The perspective of a “fixed” mindset is that innate intelligence and talent are more central to successful learning and change than effort and commitment. Dweck's work demonstrates that we can develop what she calls a “growth” mindset – centered in the belief that our most basic abilities can be enhanced through hard work and dedication, “that brains and talent are just the starting point.”  Research shows that even seemingly small social-psychological interventions that target limiting, self-negating thoughts and feelings can lead to deep, sustain…

Its the holidays and time for repeated viewings of "Its A Wonderful Life" a movie about George Bailey, a generous man with dreams that are thwarted by world events and his own good nature who helps a novice angel get his wings. To do this George must experience what the world would be like if he had never been born, which reveals to him an entirely different way of seeing his very existence and the impact of his choices.  It is a story about mindset, how a creative experience - especially one that opens up a new way of seeing - can change it and how that shift in perception takes the same set of facts and redefines them. 
 This film still has currency but the world it depicts is gone forever because of technology. And as a person old enough to remember public phones and having to wait for the mail, I experience each new wave of technology the way George Bailey responds to that angel - with resistance and an irrational but very potent mocking skepticism. I usually start ou…