I love this quote...

From the front page here:

“In order to learn, one must change one’s mind.” ~Orson Scott Card

I have one similar to that - it goes…

“Changing me is as simple as changing my mind”

and…

“Change is a mere thought away”

~ ~ ~

Hi everyone, I’m Katii and I’m new to zaadz and to this pod. I’m looking forward to reading and getting to know you all (insert waving smilie here :p)

Re: I love this quote...

and to take that a step further,….

 if we (the zaadsters) are the ones who have the correct frame of mind to change the world..how do you convince others?

 welcome to zaadz btw… i'm on my first afternoon here as well :)

Re: I love this quote...

Welcome both of you!  I'm so glad you've both joined zaadz AND my pod!  I hope that you both learn and grow and expand your mind with your experiences here!

And about the quote…

Thanks for loving it!  I love it, too!  Orson Scott Card is my favorite author, and although he can be a bit wordy at times, his books are full of wonderful knowledge, evaluations, insights, and lessons.  I hope you pick up one of his books soon if you haven't already!

In order to learn one must change one's mind…yes.  I picked it because it's true.  Many people fail to learn anything new because they are too stubborn to change their minds about anything, and I think that that's a very sad way to be, indeed!  So, hopefully, we can all change one another's minds and the minds of the world around us by sharing, speaking, and learning together.  Welcome!  I look forward to many more posts from the both of you!

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i don't know, i think emotional development within and of the mind is more prominent when you are not attached to your ideas so strongly that they need to be changed.

more like having insights, and not letting the insights have you.

not becoming defensive over ideas

but letting them flow.

thats my two cents.

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I would agree with you, because I, myself, am not so attached to my own ideas that they really need change.  Why?  I'm always open to change.  It flows freely within me and comes and goes as it pleases.  When you constantly welcome change, then change becomes a part of the living process, and you do not fear change.  Whether it be a change of ideas or situations or something else, I don't fear it, because I have always embraced change.

Most people do not.  Most people fear change.  So, I picked the quote to inspire those who are afraid to change their minds, but who want more, to open their minds.

People already open to change should read your post.  Your two cents is worth more than that, so keep it coming.  ;)

Welcome.  Post more.

See you then.

Salaam.
Jax

Re: I love this quote...

Hi,

I wonder how many here have read the entire series of Orson Scott Card about the Xenocide and Speaker for the Dead, as well as his fantasy series about Alvin Maker, an alternative “history” of the U.S.

While I can't get into everything he writes (the horror stories leave me quite literally cold, and there are series and individual books that just puzzle me), I find that there is so much to fascinate in the two series I mention, especially the one that includes the book Children of the Mind.

It also interests me that he is a Mormon, because I find that particular faith rather odd, and am fascinated that such a profound and creative thinker could affiliate himself with it. For me it is a good example of the peculiarity of human beings… He also has a large family, and at least one challenged child…

Anyway, getting back to Card, if you like him, have you ever seen his website, www.hatrack.com ?

Here are excerpts from his latest reviews. I especially find the last one interesting, because I am an educator, and am distressed about the education system:

We really wanted to see Akeelah and the Bee when it was still in the theaters this summer, but we were distracted by overhyped nonsense movies just often enough that we missed our chance. So when we saw the DVD in Target the other day, we bought it and watched it the very next night.

What a wonderful story! Akeelah is a 7^th grade girl in a broken-down middle school in South Central Los Angeles, but she has a mind like a sponge – she learns things so easily that she tries to conceal her excellence from the bullies at school who like to beat up smart kids.

Almost against her will, she gets involved in a spelling bee and discovers that she actually likes both the competition and the chance to be really good at something… Her school principal finds her a coach – a semi-retired UCLA professor with problems of his own, who demands the best from her and gets it….

Amid this excellent cast, Keke Palmer, who plays Akeelah, shines forth as the heart and root of the story. Her performance is absolutely unaffected and real; what we see is genuine talent, not child-star chops; this girl is going to grow up to be genuine Oscar-bait. And since all the children give superb performances, we can also see Doug Atchison as one of those rare directors who can and should work with children – he brings out the best in all of them…

Having once had a tv series idea of mine picked up by the WB for a year or so, before being dumped, I've had my taste of network pitch meetings and the search for good shows. It's easy to get the impression from watching television that the networks are headed by gangs of dolts, and good shows only get on television by accident. Not so.

As a general rule, the people in charge of programming at the networks are very, very smart. The trouble is that no matter how smart you are, nobody knows which series are going to become instant hits with the public and which are going to tank miserably…

Each new hit seems to come out of nowhere (which often means the Brits did it first), and then all the others imitate the original. American Idol hits, and then everybody has to have a gimmicky talent show. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? hits, and suddenly quiz shows are popping up in prime time. Fox sells its soul to the sleaziest possible reality shows, and soon the other networks sell their souls, almost as cheaply.

Carter takes us inside the networks and production companies where we can see how personalities drive what's happening. Conflicts between east-coast and west-coast offices, ambitious climbers and paranoid bosses – it's all there…

The book is officially oriented toward would-be television writers, but on that score, it often might lead to despair – too many of them got their break because they knew somebody. But lots of them simply wrote spec scripts and submitted them, just to show how they could handle existing series characters; they almost never got hired by the show the spec script was officially intended for, but they got hired … because they could write…

The SpringBoard reading-and-writing program is mandatory for language arts teachers in Guilford County seventh and eighth grades this year. The slogan of the manufacturer, CollegeBoard, is “connect to college success.” I wonder.

The program first came to my attention when my wife attended an open house about it and heard that one of the assignments for seventh graders was to write about “the worst thing that had ever happened to them.” The teacher giving the presentation talked about how she had chosen to write about the death of her father when she was a child, and how cathartic it was to be able to pour out her feelings on paper.

My wife and I both thought: That's great when you're forty years old, but what about when you're twelve, and whatever you write is going to be read and graded by a teacher – and quite probably read by fellow students as well.

A program like that wouldn't be “reading and writing,” it would be “group therapy,” and frankly, I don't think school's the place for it. Suppose a child really was dealing with the death of a parent or sibling; what right would a teacher have to demand that he or she write about it?

So we got our hands on a copy of the Level II teacher and student manuals to see just what was going on.

To our relief, what's actually in the book is not as therapy-group-sounding as the presentation had led us to believe. The actual assignment is to “think about a childhood disaster (falling off a bike, breaking an arm, etc.) or perhaps a memory they have of something in the past (preferably before they were eight years old) that is very vivid.” Not a bad writing assignment at all – the student still has the discretion to decide how intimate the self-revelation would be. It could even be presented comically – always the safest choice, especially for class clowns.

I looked through the entire program and, while not impressed, I wasn't dismayed, either. I could imagine a relatively harmless course being taught from this book…

The thing I don't understand is why anyone felt the need to make this mediocre English course mandatory for all our middle school kids. The district monitors to make sure that all the teachers are on schedule with it, four days a week – which means that even the teachers who know how to teach a better course than this – which is most of them, I should hope – are forced to use this program and no other.

In other words, a good teacher is forced to do all of her real teaching in the leftover time that isn't taken up by doing what the district mandates.

Weren't we trying to hire excellent teachers? Isn't that the single most important thing we need in our schools? But how can you keep a first-rate English teacher in our district if we force her to teach a second-rate course and leave her precious little time to do the very thing she is trained to do?

What problem is the district trying to solve by imposing this program?

I have given presentations in many schools around America, usually sponsored by English teachers, and never once has any English teacher ever said or hinted that she wished somebody would just tell her how to teach a writing course. They never whine about how they can't think of writing assignments for their students and they just can't find good things to have their students read.

What I usually hear – everywhere – is that they wish the district would get off their backs and let them spend their time doing what they love: helping kids get excited about reading and writing. Most of them already know how to do a better job than they're allowed to do.

Now, if there are a few English teachers who are really awful and dim-witted, then by all means, provide SpringBoard as an optional, minimal guide for the desperate.

But how many years do you think a good teacher can spend making kids read that miserable “Phaeton” story and doing the same mostly-unhelpful exercises in order to make them slightly worse writers than they would naturally have been, before the teacher gives up and moves on to another career?

I have a vision of some district employee in charge of curriculum development, desperately trying to justify his or her higher-than-the-teachers salary, working frantically for months or years to get the whole district to adopt the SpringBoard program. Then this administrator can point with pride at how he or she made a real difference in the education of children in Guilford County.

Meanwhile, the teachers bend a little lower in the yoke and plow on, trying to salvage some means of giving a good education to the children.

We don't need more top-down mandates to improve our schools. We need more classrooms where good teachers are free to inspire their students with love for the subject matter they're offering.

We don't need to spend our money on highly-paid administrators who come up with cool new programs. There are no programs that are remotely as good as having good teachers in front of relatively small groups of students. We would make a far greater improvement in our students' education if we fired everybody involved with forcing the SpringBoard program on our middle schools and used the money we used to pay them to hire a handful of English teachers.

Or … here's a thought … just spread that money around to the English teachers we already have, and then get out of their way so they can teach the literature they love and help their students love it too.

Re: I love this quote...

Greetings all. I'm new here also.

See Doubleyou, I've given your question a lot of thought over the last year. I think some of the ways to convince others is simply through ourselves. I can only really speak for me, so, through myself. Through my actions and through my reactions to others. I think all the little things I do every day have an impact.

One of my daily affirmations is:
I will have a positive effect on everyone I come into contact with today.

I've noticed that when I really take this to heart, it changes the way I interact with people and, as a result, my interactions seem more positive. I tend to slow down and pay more attention to those I come into contact with. Maybe become more impeccable with my Word. I know for sure I tend to smile more because when I'm paying attention I notice how beautiful and intriguing people are.

I think change really does start at a very simple level.

Re: I love this quote...

One can only change one's self.  In my experience, leading by example has been a most positive approach to affecting change…  be true to who you are can empower others to embrace their true selves.



It's wonderful to be here sharing with all!

Re: I love this quote...

It is true, to a point, that one can only change one's self, however, the changes that one makes in one's self can and will and does effect everything around that self.  By changing myself, I change the world around me.  My attitude, my actions, my dispositions, they all effect others.  It's the ripple effect.  So, while it's true that one can only change one's self, it's also true that those changes can effect the rest of the world.  That's important to keep in mind.

Re: I love this quote...

We have the power to change our minds but I would also say that other people have just as much power. I want clarify that when someone else is changing us, YOU or I are still the ones getting changed. Ex., in the movie V for Vendetta, while Evie was in the general mode of fear, held by most of her peers, V took her under his wing. He basically took every ounce her free will from her while in the process changing her entire perspective. This is an example of extreme situation control and still with all power stripped from her she was still able to hold on to Spirit and face her death with fearless eyes. But in this theoretical extreme it was still Evie who committed to the change. And to this I say, we are never isolated in our changing process. It is continuous and escapes nobody. We all change together and because of each other. Another great quote is from Muhammad Ali and he said, loosely, “…if you lived your life the same at 50 as you did at 20, you wasted 30 years of your life”. thanks. dakota

Re: I love this quote...

“we become masters of what we practice.”  its a very general and sublime statement, i think i read it in a Don Miguel Ruiz book

Re: I love this quote...

We often resist change or stay in denial because our personality/aspects gets attached and habituated to certain thought patterns, beliefs and attitudes…and brain gets hard-wired in denial and resistance. Ego sees change as death, so even if change is only a thought away, it is difficult or frustrating at first to take the first steps.

For me the serenity prayer and four agreements worked amazingly once I embraced them fully.

Re: I love this quote...

We can get attached to the effect that we are having on others.
I think we just need to KNOW that:

Everything that we think, everything that we say and everthing that we do effects everything.
First your own mind - body - situation. Then your close circle of family and friends. Then your community. And all of us together create the world that we live in.

I am…You ARE…responsible for the way the world is. Let go of the attcment to changing/helping/effecting others and, as Ghandi said, “Become the change you want to see in the world.”

Love the quote too. The entry to my website says :”To change the world ~ Change how you think.” and my last page says:

Re: I love this quote...

There is a deep humbleness and a humility I sense here within these posts, and I appreciate the instant sharing.
I would like to say the same from another view, if you please.
To me, everyone is truth, you cannot step out of it, except sometimes one may not be able to get the exactitude of it. I understand now what we each are saying when we say 'truth'. We really mean:  the person I am is enabled to accept what I can at any moment in space/time, and fill the container until the moment of breaking. The container is what it is, whatever we have conscious recognition, focus or attention of, and we relate everything with this. It could be equated as being the 'centre' of our 'verse' within the universe, and the approach to every day life is validated by our very thoughts in alignment with this 'truth'.
It is also that one cannot step outside of consciousness either, for we grow and live in and through it, and thus help all things, no matter the duality involved (ie the discrimination of good/evil, left/right, etc); and every step that one of us takes in the 'aligned truth' direction - that is the HEART of our being human - we draw each other closer to the goal. No one develops alone; the very connectedness or brotherhood which we are part is the 'essential quality' of our relating, and of our humanness.
The distinction which we make when we ascertain or ascribe races, as in racial differences, they really are differentiations, not differences as we perceive them. Differentiations of the same essential unity of humanness; to look at our human being 'centre' that we are in any way dissected from this fact, is living in a Hall of Ignorance, waiting to develop humanity within themselves.
I think one of the part-problems of our humanness is our terminology for the same expressions we share can often be perceived as threatening to others. When we can get beyond the physical, emotional and mentally constructed words of our definitions of what is life, there will we find the deep need of our brotherhood, and the interconnectedness we are.

Re: I love this quote...

I remember an WOW moment for me was when I was 8 and I though “I choose”.

I can choose to believe whatever I want. Any truth is what I choose to believe at that moment. I choose to believe in gravity. I choose to believe in life, I choose to believe….

Truth is only what I choose to believe it is.

Everyone is exactly what they believe and any of us can change our mind at any moment…we ARE our consciousness.

Later I realized that the force of our collective beliefs is what creates everything about our world.

I was drawn to work as a poet and a journalist and an editor for a time because I realized the power in how we choose to express ourselves and how we define things. (people, words, countries, thoughts, the world…)

Ah yes, Fiery Heart, I do so agree with you

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Dragon Dancer,

Everyone is exactly what they believe and any of us can change our mind at any moment…we ARE our consciousness.

I love this…would you mind expounding a little?

I believe that it IS our choice at any moment to react or to respond, to love or to fear, to identify with ego or not…and this is liberation beyond words.

I'd love to hear more from you….

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illume,

I'm not sure what to say…

What comes to mind for me is that people can easily get stuck in a belief or goal that doesn't serve them, even if it did at one time.

Your bliss at 20 may not be the same as your bliss at 30 or 40 or 50.
Or maybe a life experience changes what you want to be/do.

I have always recommended NOT setting goals. Most people set a goal and then think they have to stay on track to that goal no matter what. Your  only goal should be to Live Your Perfect Life

The Secret does a good job of explaining how I believe life works. If you have not seen it there is a link at www.Joyvolution.com where you can see it for free.

I've put a lot of misc. stuff on my blog too.
DD

Re: I love this quote...

Hey Katii =]