We typically send our college grads into the world with words of optimism, but is this really a wise choice. Since the world is cold, wouldn't it be better to tell them what really to expect. Here are two talks which take opposite approaches. The first talk is Steve Jobs' address to Stanford during his fight with cancer. He explains how his closeness to death made him only settle for excellence. This is considered to be one of the most inspiring commencement addresses ever given. Yet we know that Jobs eventually lost his battle with cancer.
The second talk is from TED, and takes a more pessimistic tone. This is not a real commencement address, and after you see it you will know why. So in your opinion, which talk would be more useful to college grads?
In the Pan portion of the meeting, we see a TED Talk by our old friend Hans Rosling. He will answer Al's question of why the world population will level off.
Dear Zoom-iners;
ReplyDeleteI have a few thoughts to share with you about today's meeting. I shared Steve Jobs comment about looking back and connecting the dots. I restated his observation about living life forward but understanding it backwards. The quote I was paraphrasing was from Daniel J Boorstein, I believe in his book Hidden History.
As I looked around the table this morning, I realized that all of us were at least 60 years old and probably could connect a lot of dots in our own lives.
A thought I had this morning and the suggestion I'd like to make now is that our group members individually may be interested in sharing some of the experiences of our life where we look back and connected "our own dots."
We can offer, of course, only those who wish to share some reflections on their own life in a future session.
There may be no Steve Jobs among us, but I'm sure we all have valuable life experiences that would be of interest to one another.
Last week's discussion about sports and the format we used of taking three minutes to speak about something of interest about sports can be used as a share some of our own experiences with one another.
I'm interested in hearing any of your comments or thoughts concerning the suggestion.
Vince
I’m not an expert on the concept of “connecting the dots.” Historically, however, it has always been my thinking that most of the progress one experiences emanates from revisiting one’s past and then using the result of the latter in plotting a positive and effective future. Hence, if revisiting our past can be of value in helping one of us, or the community for that matter, plot a successful and effective future, then I’m for it . . . .For I don’t think it would be a surprise to anyone to hear me say that “I can benefit from the latter process.” . . . .Thanks Vince from Sherman Howell
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