Valuing Full Range
Pick any continuum: love and hate, black and white, cruelty and kindness, open and closed. Choosing to occupy each extreme, as well as every stage in between has impact that can be both constructive and destructive to the values you hold dear. Understanding how each aspect of every continuum can be your asset and/or liability is a form of vision that empowers you to be more effective at creating what you want. As an example, hostility can be an asset in creating distance and space with others. It can be a liability in creating connection and safety. If you provide safety for one’s enemy in war you may get killed. On the other hand, providing safety for one’s enemy can lead to stopping the war. Love can distract you while driving and may lead you to kill the one you love. Love can lead you to hold to the discipline of safe driving to protect the one you love. Excellence is an asset to torturer and lover alike. Torture can create connection, and disconnection. Pain can create bonding, and isolation. Action: Appreciate all qualities and energies for their ability to support or destroy your values and objectives. Pick a quality you judge and explore it’s potential value.
Sound abstract? Each of these abstract concepts have significant practical implications. As an example, many environmental organizations are anti Wall Mart. Wall Mart thrives because it has the most efficient distribution network in the world. That skill is neutral. In other words, if there was an environmental disaster and pamphlets outlining relief along with survival kits needed distributing world wide, Wall Mart could do the job more effectively and cheaply than any other organization - including environmental agencies. But few environmentalists are willing to don the eyes that can see this potential alliance because they are blinded by the label of Wall Mart as "enemy."
Cresting the Waves:
A guide to sailing through life on
Relation-Ships
Dane E. Rose
