Visionaries

[rebeccmeister]

On Saturday, I got into an irritating circular argument with a person who just wanted to gripe about life and times in America. His main complaint was that people are too focused on money and status, those typical individualist objectives.

On the one hand, I could have agreed with him, but then the discussion wouldn't have been all that interesting. He could be right, that a large sector of the American population is (myopically) focused on just money and status (tedious subjects to discuss, as gfrancie recently pointed out).

On the other hand, and perhaps I'm optimistic in this belief, but I believe that most people are actually looking for ways to make their lives more meaningful--a search that requires going beyond money and status. And it's entirely possible to surround oneself with Americans that have much more interesting and diverse values. I'm fortunate enough to have developed many such friendships.

Perhaps this particular person (I don't really know him from a stranger on the street) is feeling isolated, or, like some people I know, began his career with those two things as his objectives and is now experiencing their hollowness and meaninglessness. I had to cut off the conversation because it started to bore me--these sorts of discussions have always made me feel impatient and I still don't know how to change the tone of the discussion to maintain my interest and make the discussion meaningful. (ironic, no?)

Conversations based on such gripes make me wonder--so what are you doing to change things? What's your vision for the future, and how will you try to get there? How many people share your vision, and how do you connect with them? (the internet, for instance, is a great way to connect) What are your dreams, and who do they involve? I have little patience for most cases of helplessness, because usually there is something that one can do to change, even if the change is a miniscule thing. Why not live your own dreams and find others who share those dreams?

Maintaining that balance between having a vision and striving for it, and yet remaining pragmatic, is difficult. But developing a vision can make life so much richer.

Comments

how to change the tone of the discussion

[(Anonymous)]

What I am working on is nurturing curiosity sufficiently to be able to ask the question(s) that will evoke the person's story of how they have come to their present situation. On can not argue with or disagree with a story -- it's just the person's recounting of what happened. This strategy actually worked for me once, when I met a person who immediately attempted to pusuade me that their religion was the one that got it right. Instead of either challenging or agreeing with them, I found the presence of mind to ask them how they had come to their religious belief, and received in return a meaningful portion of the story of that person's life. I did not grow bored with the conversation.

There's a book on this topic, Storycatcher, by Christina Baldwin, (a book that I never completed reading) and a companion web site http://www.storycatcher.net/ that presents the basic idea of searching for stories rather than arguments or discussions.

Love,
Dad

[annikusrex.livejournal.com]

in paris people seem to be obsessed with being very pretty at all hours. i can do nothing to change this, so i look at pretty people instead.

[whetherwoman.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite conversations lately was with a 14 year old who was griping about feeling powerless over his life. When asked whether he would like to change how he reacted to that, he very forthrightly said "No, I'd like to keep moping for a while. But when I do feel like being proactive, I'll definitely come to you for ideas!"

I have a theory that if people admitted they just wanted to gripe for a while, they'd gripe for less time and be more proactive when they were done.

[earthlingmike.livejournal.com]

It is far too common that people seem to just want to complain about something, they aren't actually doing anything to better their situation, in fact I often suspect many such people resist change and are scared of it, because then they wouldn't be able to complain.