On Doubt

“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.” – James 1:6

                Christianity has made a number of contributions to the world of religions. One of the more prominent has been the elevation of faith to imperative status. Since the Protestant reformation, in particular, faith has come to enjoy a central place among Christian tenets. Faith is the source of great power, a power capable of moving mountains, even providing eternal salvation. Accordingly, its antithesis, doubt, must be avoided. One could even interpret Christian scripture and teachings to say that to doubt is to sin. The only value doubt could add in this system would be to provide the Christian something to overcome with faith. Here, I challenge this arrangement and submit that doubt can be, and more often than not, is a good. I value doubt because it tempers action when zealous belief would have me rush into an unwise situation. And yet, doubt spurs me to take action, to explore and research a claim more thoroughly because I doubt its veracity. Furthermore, doubt can create possibility and open new venues for new innovation in thought. While it is not without its pitfalls and must be incorporated in a life with temper and balance, doubt is a necessary value.

                Doubt is a state of disbelief, the opposite of faith. We can understand doubt best as a mental state that occurs when we confront a claim that falls short of being plausible or even possible. The salesman approaches me with a vacuum cleaner selling for thousands of dollars and argues that it will bring value to my life by providing me with the cleanest carpets I have ever had. Layered in his elaborate sales pitch are a number of claims that spur doubts within me. In this mundane scenario, I doubt that the vacuum cleaner is really worth that much. I doubt that the cleanliness of my carpets plays that large of a role in my life. I also doubt that this vacuum cleaner is significantly better than the one I already have. These doubts rise unbidden. We use conscious effort to recognize doubt but not to produce it. From practiced habit and a multitude of prior experiences, I do not see the salesman’s claims as being plausible. I sense, immediately, that he overstates what truths may exist within his pitch. In this encounter, I doubt strongly. Doubt is a mental response that draws upon our experience and understanding of truth and reality when we confront a given claim or system of knowing.

                Doubt brings pause to action. A skeptical stance towards any venture produces much needed caution. Whether leaping after something of our own design or consenting to participate in another’s plan, doubt can save us from misfortune. One of the main values the brain brings to our species is its capacity to forecast or make predictions about our future and environmental conditions. We take much of the information we receive through our senses to map out norms and construct base expectations. Our brain notes experiences in cause and effect, and relationships between disparate items as well as conflicts and their outcomes. All of this happens to the end that we can successfully navigate the multitude of ever changing variables that confront us each day.

I remember a number of years ago, when I was a young man in my early twenties, an acquaintance about my age came to my home with another older man. He presented me with a business deal that sounded amazing. I did not have to front a bunch of money or go into debt. I would commit to it part time to start and then expand as I got more successful. I would become a part of an organization dedicated to my success. They both painted a picture of me fulfilling all of my financial dreams by joining them. I felt excited. Their narrative possessed the right balance of plausibility and possibility. I wanted to pursue the venture. Unwittingly, though, a doubt emerged: what if this is too good to be true? That little doubt proved enough to keep me from making any commitments at that time. I researched the matter further the next day and discovered that my doubt had been well placed: the golden opportunity had been a scam. Drawing upon some amalgam of experience and knowledge, I had a doubt and the pause it brought to my action saved me a great deal of trouble. Doubt does not only bring about pause though.

                Doubt has spurred me on to action as many times as it has tempered my actions. As a child I was presented the world and given a simple account for why it works the way it does. The superficial explanations appeared plausible. I accepted them, for a time. Then, doubt crept in and I had to search out the truth. I have pursued this pattern innumerable times and each time numerous hours of research began with a sense of doubt. One such time of spurred action began in my early teenage years.

Like many young children I had a fascination with Native Americans and their culture. I suppose it started with the simple activity of playing “cowboys and Indians” or my fascination with the television series The Lone Ranger. Perhaps the image of their wild freedom and exotic otherness played a part as well. I wondered why they no longer ranged large on the world scene.  I read accounts in my family’s daily study of the Book of Mormon that explained their demise as a result of having “dwindled in unbelief” (1 Nephi 12:23). In that account Native American ancestors once had the true gospel of Jesus Christ but became wicked. The consequence was God then gave the Gentiles (Europeans) the Americas for an inheritance. Essentially, the Native Americans had the land but God took it from them due to their unrighteousness and gave it to the invading Europeans. While this simplistic explanation harmonized with other things I was being taught, I doubted part of it. I struggled in a particular way with the claim that Native Americans or their culture was wicked. I admired so much of it (I was very guilty of romanticizing it all). In this state of doubt, I found further study and research to be the natural course of action. I went to the library and read books on the Iroquois and Sioux among more general histories about trappers and mountain men. These readings expanded my understanding of the actual historical context and turned into an ongoing inquiry that has extended across much of my life (most recently in reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, which has offered some of the best explanations to that initial question I have read so far). If I had not doubted, I would not have acted and sought out more information on the topic. The initial answer to my question would have sufficed and I would not have expanded my knowledge and understanding to the degree I have. My doubt moved me to act and grow.

Doubt also spurs creativity and opens up new possibilities. This aspect of the value of doubt is most evident in a historical context. Great breakthroughs in science, medicine, art, philosophy, social justice, and civilization have started with doubt. A doubt that questioned the received tradition, the predominate way of doing things, or the simple assumptions of their progenitors. For over two thousand years the theory that the ability to cure diseases and be healthy depended upon a careful balance of the body’s humors (fluids) ruled largely unquestioned. I imagine that techniques based on this approach did have ameliorating effects on many ailments. Then, the Bubonic plague infected much of Europe in the fourteenth century. We have not encountered a more devastating epidemic since. Historians estimate that this disease killed a third of Europe’s population in just three years. The medical treatments based on a balance of humors did not work in the face of the Black Death. They failed utterly as entire towns and cities died out in a matter of weeks. This failure planted the seed of doubt in the minds of scholars and doctors. The doubts that followed spurred on an inquiry that combined with other historical trends and events to emerge into a scientific system based on the use of reason and evidence within a community of critical thinkers. Through this method, medical science eventually discovered that microorganisms caused diseases like the Bubonic plague. With this accurate understanding medical scientists could develop effective treatments. It took scientists centuries following that initial doubt to discover germ theory, but it all began with the doubt that the current model was not what it claimed to be.  

The role of doubt within history can hardly be overstated. Doubt has been that first step in numerous creative and innovative ventures. Many of the institutions and developments we enjoy today all began with a doubt. Doubt clears out space for a new inquiry. It opens up venues for creativity. It produces possibility. Doubt induces one to come up with something better, more accurate, or more just. Doubt is the first step in liberation. In Doubt: a History, Jennifer Michael Hecht says concerning doubt:

It seems to have a knack for generating and popularizing very useful theories. In atomism, anthropology, and cosmology, in politics and neurology, we now hold doubters’ doctrines. It is not a coincidence: doubters have wanted to know how the world works and expected to find answers in the world around them. Doubt has been a disproportionately industrious and dynamic stream of human culture and cosmology, espoused by such productive figures as Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein, Frederick Douglas and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Socrates and Sigmund Freud—it gets a lot done (486).

Even a cursory look at doubt across history suggests its essential role within our progress as a human civilization.

                Although the ever faithful believer described by the apostle Paul may view doubt as a sin, doubt is in fact a value that we should not repress, shun, or shame. We cannot remain in our doubts, however. Through acknowledging and acting on those doubts that arise we can fruitfully navigate our way through this world. Whether bringing pause to hasty action or spurring us on to pursue further understanding and a new approach, doubt is the key to open doors to a better future.

Truth Matters

                Growing up I acquired a value for truth. I was not only taught in my home that truth matters, but I also acquired a few tools in school for assessing the truth of a claim. It wasn’t until I began studying history in graduate school that I first encountered open despisers of truth. It was a school of thought, loosely called postmodernism, that emphasized the role that text plays in power relationships over truth. For these postmodernists power concerns so dominate everything that truth is not only unattainable, it is not even relevant except as a rhetorical device needing deconstruction. All that matters is the portrayal of truth by political and social actors. I quickly discovered that the postmodernist discussion of truth mires down in a morass of contextual equivocations and cultural relativism. For these thinkers, arriving at the truth of a claim often implies supporting the abuse of power and oppression. In this way they moralize truth to the margins of consideration. Truth does not matter to those in this school of thought.

                As some years passed, I came across another set of truth despisers. While going through a rather extensive and prolonged crisis of faith, I wrestled with the truth claims within the religion of my forefathers. These truth claims produced some difficult contradictions but they were indeed verifiable and falsifiable. I wanted them to be true, but the evidence came up short. As I struggled to reconcile such contradictions many a friend, relation, or church apologist would quip, “What does it matter? It makes me happy. Even if the entire gospel was proved wrong, I would still choose to believe it because it brings me joy.” These well-meaning individuals place a high value on the feelings and relationships that they associate with the truth claims I find to be false; so much so that, ultimately, the truth of such claims do not matter to them.

                Truth does matter. Choosing to believe something over and against the truth is not a virtue. Placing concerns for power or social relationships above the truth lays a weak foundation for further inquiry and produces a framework for potential abuse. Ignoring the truth or accepting falsified truth claims leads to all the pitfalls associated with using an inaccurate map on a backcountry expedition. A bad map can produce everything from minor inconveniences to deadly accidents. In this material world we pursue truth in the face of many obstacles. We access the reality around us with our senses and this leaves us in an epistemological box of sorts. We can overcome this limitation through combining our efforts in open inquiry where reason and evidence provide a basis for collaboration and argument concerning the truth.

                We live in a material world that requires us to interact with it appropriately or die. A set of varied conditions constrain us. Either we step carefully along the path by the cliff’s edge or we plummet to a sudden death. We work and cooperate with others and then we can eat, drink, and sleep indoors. We drive on the right side of the road in cooperation with oncoming traffic in order to avoid life threatening collisions. Since our lives and existence depend on a range of material needs and conditions, we must have an accurate understanding of our environment and its ever changing dynamic. Given this very real circumstance, collectively adopting an unverified or falsified map when other more accurate maps are available is just dangerous. A map is only as good as its correspondence and congruence to the terrain that it represents. If I were to take an expedition through a desert that I had not previously traversed, I would have a range of options. I could use a state of the art Global Positioning System (GPS) that relies on satellite communication to show my location on a digital map. Or, I could use a U.S. Geological Survey 7.5 minute topographical map produced by professional surveyors. Or, I could use a map my great-grandfather possessed that was drawn based on hearsay from those who heard the various accounts of people who went into that country (the actual methodology of early European map makers). To openly choose the latter map is obviously irresponsible and foolish. Moreover, given the material realities of our world, to select such an inaccurate map would prove dangerous and actually produce accidents. Making the decision to cross a desert based on the map’s represented size could turn deadly if the terrain in reality was two or three times larger causing one to not bring enough necessary supplies. Or, using such a faulty map to decide to take a particularly dangerous approach to a high mountain peak could bring the climber to an unseen drop off and a fatal accident. An inaccurate map is deadly and any benefits associated with its use come in spite of it, not because of it.

                Like a map, a system of ideas that claims to represent a seen world and its interaction with an unseen world can only be beneficial to the degree that it is accurate and congruent with reality. Religious views, scriptures, and even cultural traditions all make claims about how the material world operates.  I stumbled along with one such map in my young adult years. I received the knowledge from my parents and church leaders that a loving God governed everything that was and that He provided me with a map: the Holy Scriptures in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Furthermore, I acquired a view that God gave me an unseen spirit to guide me: the gift of the Holy Ghost. For numerous years I used this fundamental paradigm to guide my every thought, question, and decision. I studied the scriptures regularly to find inspiration and understanding about the world and what God wanted me to do. I prayed to God in hopes that He would send me guidance and truth through the quiet whisperings of the Holy Ghost. Of course these whisperings were never audible but more akin to feelings and impressions on my mind. For quite some time this map seemed to work, but there were always outliers, exceptions to the rule. Over time, these incongruities, little failures in the story to represent reality, began to pile up.

One particular difficulty arose in the expectations this map gave me. The stories I read in the scriptures described great men of faith who performed many miracles and received profound truths about the universe and God. I understood that if I had that kind of faith, if I was obedient to that degree, I could expect similar results. The map indicated that it would be so. Over time, as I used this map to make my way through this world I did not experience those expectations. I did try to impose and project these supposed results on a number of mundane aspects of my life, yet, in the end, deep down, I knew that the outcomes imprinted on the map were not there. I realized the map was bad. It relied on hearsay from those who heard the various accounts of others who never stood accountable for their claims. The whisperings of the Holy Ghost were my own feelings and emotions powerfully marshaled to serve the claims of the scriptures and religious community promulgating the map. I also came to see that this map was layered with justifications designed to explain away and obscure its own failings. I then knew that years of my brief life were forever lost to bumbling around with a deficient and inaccurate map. Of course, my experience pales in comparison to friends who are homosexual where this same map describes them as abominations not worthy of recognition as people. Truth matters.

Herein lays the problem with embracing an untruth because it makes me happy. The given superstition or religious belief may bring a feeling of happiness for any number of reasons, but its untrue aspects make that happiness untenable and brings avoidable harm on others. Happiness based on something falsified or willfully unexamined is accidental. At some point, the believer necessarily brushes up against reality and then faces a dilemma: defend the inaccurate belief, modify it so that it conforms to reality, or abandon it. I grew up under the teaching that homosexual identity and behavior was sinful. Homosexuals did not deserve rights or protections under the law because their behavior was wrong. I accepted this and then met and got to know a few people who identified as homosexual. As I grew to appreciate these individuals, their lives contradicted my beliefs. Over time I could find nothing especially sinful in their behavior or existence. It caused me to question not only the belief but its source. I eventually abandoned the entire map because this was one of many inaccuracies I discovered.

I could have chosen to modify the belief in some way or just to defend the belief: homosexuals only seem to be happy or some such explanation. The pressure to defend it was connected to a state of happiness that I enjoyed. My family and community all embraced this belief and the religion it arose within. To reject the belief and map, of which it was a part, would make waves and cause unhappiness to myself and others. Also, there were other aspects of the religion I really enjoyed. Ultimately I refused to defend the belief because to defend it felt like an unethical act carried out only to justify a supposed good end: my happiness. To defend a falsehood in order to maintain my happiness just felt wrong. Truth makes one free—lies and bullshit just hide and obscure. Religious beliefs do not stay in the supernatural world, as such they cannot receive a free pass from scrutiny. God speaks and angels visit the earth with commands that affect real people. God’s word on homosexuals has brought about persecution, abuse, self-loathing, suicide, and murder. Defending such a belief because it makes me happy is just wrong. Truth matters.

A map is not the terrain it represents. As such, any map will fail in corresponding perfectly. A perfect map would be the ground itself and thus not of any use or value practically. Furthermore, our access to reality is necessarily mediated by our senses and mental constructions—what I call an epistemological box. These two factors alone create insurmountable difficulties in our quest for accurate representations of reality and perfect truth claims. As human beings our understandings are necessarily limited. Some face this reality and then claim that this creates an “anything goes” environment. Such thinkers assert that since perfection and absolute truth claims are unattainable all claims are equally valid and invalid. By analogy, this is as absurd as claiming since one cannot perfectly sterilize a room for surgery it does not matter where one performs a medical operation. Operating inside a septic tank is as good as a surgical room according to this line of reasoning. Another approach made to establish equivalency among all truth claims is the parable of the blind men who encounter an elephant. The blind man who feels the trunk describes the elephant as long and thin. Another describes the elephant as wide and flat like a wall. Another as thin and wispy based on encountering the tail. The fallacy in this parable lays in the presupposition that these blind men are incapable of collaborating or working together. It also assumes that their investigation stops with their initial inquiry. Through working together and exploring further over time, these blind men would be capable of acquiring a reliably accurate description or map for an elephant.

                Through coming together in an open inquiry we can reduce or outright overcome the limitations in knowing the truth of various claims about reality. The use of evidence derived from experiments and observations can serve as a foundation for such inquiries. Reasonable arguments and rules of critical thinking can refine the inquiry and help avoid common pitfalls of inaccurate thinking. Eliminating authoritarian dominance by embracing an open approach makes real progress toward truth possible. The use of reasonable argument and evidence must be available to any actor willing to participate in this collective inquiry if we are to arrive at any kind of accurate account of reality. To hold onto a belief simply because an authority pronounces it leads to the perpetuation of bad maps. The human brain, by its very structure and design, provides us with the ability to recognize patterns and relationships around us in order to make predictions—to anticipate circumstances prone to change and volatility. This singular feature of being human has contributed greatly to the success of our species. To circumvent this feature, to compromise it willingly to “be happy” or for any other reason leaves us bereft of the capacity and tools necessary to successfully navigate life and society. Truth matters.

On Mattering

               We exist in an increasingly complicated world. Problems multiply and become more complex with each passing generation. Technological breakthroughs occur at an exponential rate to such a degree that they shrink our world while human population numbers explode. Most of us subsist in faceless, modern societies where our circumstances seem entirely beyond our control. Economies falter. Disasters happen. What can we do? How can our efforts make any difference in the face of such conditions? The more poignant question is how do we matter in such a context. It is in this setting that cultivating a value for mattering can be of great worth. Mattering is one of those values that encompasses and promotes other values: honesty and truth.

                The notion that we stand powerless before a multitude of conditions beyond our control is not a new one.  The idea that fate or deterministic elements control our existence runs very deep. Philosophers and various thinkers over the past centuries have probed the nature of these conditions. Some, like the ancient Stoic philosopher Epictatus, suggest that we are like a dog tied to a cart. We don’t have control over where the cart goes but we do have the choice as to whether we run along with the cart or are dragged behind it. While useful to a degree, this metaphor is overly simplistic. An immensely varied set of deterministic elements presses upon us.   A milieu of natural and human caused conditions limits our sphere of control, and thus restricts our options severely. Do we submit to a notion of determinism or put our faith in some sort of radical liberalism? While a multitude of authors have written volumes on the question of free will, I submit that pursuing an idea of influence is a valuable course of action.

                The more modest goal of influence relieves us of the unattainable urge to control. To pursue an influence on conditions around us also alleviates anxieties about our future and viability. By its very definition, the concept of influence limits the expectations we may have as we act upon our circumstances. The mere effort to ameliorate our conditions becomes a victory because in seeking to influence we recognize the impossibility of outright control. When I wake in the morning, I know that items will arise beyond my power, but I am also confident that I can influence certain aspects of whatever situation may arise. Philosophically, I have abandoned control for a more measured, realistic aim to simply influence my environment in its many aspects. Psychologically, I find satisfaction in mattering and seeing that I can make a difference. The more realistic ambition to assert influence maximizes my capacity to do so by avoiding the despondency inherent to striving for control. Efforts to control can lead to frustration and our very undoing.

                I have had the opportunity recently to read the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles with my high school English class. This play really challenged my students’ sense that if one works hard enough, any circumstance can be overcome.  Yet, it offers a model for how seeking to make a difference through exerting influence may be the only viable option in certain situations. The play opens with Oedipus setting out to get rid of the plague that afflicts his city. He learns that the city-wide illness is a punishment for the crime a member of the city committed. Of course, Oedipus is the criminal in question but he does not know it. His parents had sent him away when an infant in an effort to contravene a prophecy that revealed that Oedipus would one day murder his father and marry his mother. Ironically, his parent’s efforts to control the outcome of this prophecy set up the conditions for its fulfillment. Years later Oedipus does in fact murder his father and marry his mother. The seer, whom Oedipus has consulted, warns him that he should stop seeking the murderer. Oedipus persists undeterred. He declares that he will find the murderer out and banish him. Through a series of inquiries and careful interviews Oedipus discovers the truth. He is the criminal that is the root cause of the plague. Though he unknowingly committed the crime and the act had been decreed by the Fates, Oedipus is nonetheless guilty of these heinous acts. Being the man that Oedipus is he gouges out his eyes in anguish at seeing such a horrible truth and banishes himself from the city he rules in order to spare it from the gods’ punishment. Of course my students thought that this was a horrible story. Oedipus is in an unwinnable situation but he does matter. He makes a difference for good in his given circumstances and therein lays his heroism. He faces the discomfiting truth and then takes on the hard task necessary to relieve the suffering of the people he rules. Much is beyond his control, but this one act is within his range of influence.

                To my thinking this is sometimes the best that we can hope for: just to matter. Mattering is not about control. Oedipus was anything but in control. One of my students described him as a ship thrown about by Fate. Nothing he could do would change the horror of what he had done and Fate had decreed.  Yet he did act. He acted boldly and with a measure of abandon. When it was time to take on the difficult task he did it. The real solution to the problem of the plague had a high price. Only after an exhausting search for truth with honesty could he understand the situation enough to make the difference.

                The value of mattering needs other values such as honesty and truth in order to operate within our lives. Oedipus boldly seeks and accepts the truth in order to then act upon it and solve the problem of the plague. Everyone Oedipus encounters in Sophocles’ play discourages him from pursuing his line of inquiry because the truth threatened to destroy his comfortable status. If he had not pressed on he would have continued to be the king in a state of self-delusion. However, the city would have continued to languish under the divinely appointed plague. Oedipus would have failed to solve the problem and his efforts would not have mattered. He would not have mattered. Mattering, making a difference for good, and exerting influence require honesty with one’s self. Self-delusion and ignorance do not augment the authentic self. Without authenticity we cannot even matter to ourselves.

                By embracing the value of mattering, we can also pursue a life of substance where our choices, words, and actions do influence the world in which we live. Being able to say, “I matter!” in the face of our intractable world is truly a value worth pursuing, embracing, and incorporating into our very being.

On Possibility

          A relatively newcomer to the scene of contending values, the value of possibility provides an array of goods for society and the individual. One cannot problem solve or innovate without a range of possibilities at his or her disposal. The increasing complexity of our civilization and its problems demands ever increasing options in the face of pressures towards uniformity. All too often we find ourselves trapped within some sort of either/or box without the capacity to imagine a solution or route of escape. Without the capacity to perceive possibilities one cannot muster the necessary divergent thinking to create anything remotely new. Possibility then is the very antithesis of tradition and the ruts caused by everyday thinking. The great challenge in possibility lies in application. It is easy enough to acknowledge the value of possibility but quite another matter to maximize the possibilities in our lives. To address this challenge we have an important book available to us, The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander. The Zanders have collaborated to bring the expertise of an accomplished psychotherapist (Rosamund) and the creative genius of the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic (Benjamin) together on the value of possibility.

            The Art of Possibility is a how-to book that is unlike any other self-help book you may have read. Rather than provide strategies to overcome the various obstacles in our competitive lives and get ahead, this book offers a way to rise above our judgment laden world and fly into a universe full of possibilities. The fundamental tenet of the book is that what possibilities are available to us depend in a measure upon how we define ourselves. What story do we tell? What role do we play in that story? This book is not about making incremental changes. It attempts to cause “a total shift of posture, perceptions, beliefs, and thought processes.” Ben and Rosamund hope to transform our entire world. I first read this book a year ago, and since that reading, I have come back to it again and again for the vista expanding riches it offers.

            The Zanders make a fundamental claim that no institution has a wide enough level of acceptance or hegemony sufficiently expansive to create values. In fact, much of the value creation is left to our economic system of free markets: a form of mindless populism that ironically performs without values (other than drives for profit, etc.). Here is where the arts and creative fields can step in and offer new energy, insights, consciousness, and interpersonal connections. The arts can provide the means to recreate the way our world operates, its very structure to something that maximizes creativity. The Zanders offer a path for expanding our possibilities as individuals and communities.

            The Zanders organize the book around twelve practices or principles that increase the levels of possibility and creativity in our lives. One of the first is that view that it is all invented. Our brains are narrative writing devices designed to explain and anticipate the conditions of the world in which we live. As such, we are ultimately the authors of this story. It is all a story that we tell. As such we can revise, rewrite, expand, or completely re-conceive the narrative. As the Zanders put it, “Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish, while new opportunities appear.” One point the Zanders do not address as well as they could have is the way that many stories are not of our own creation but have been imposed upon us from our infancy. The path to fully embrace this view of life would necessarily involve a bit of rebellion against narratives firmly entrenched in our thinking habits. A lifetime of traditional narratives designed to oppress and keep us in our limited and traditional roles can be a daunting obstacle.

            Another change the Zanders offer involves moving out of goal oriented task thinking. Rather than set up benchmarks for our success, we should create a vision for what we could be or what our world could become. Once this dream is in place, we step into that dream and out of the world of measurement. Anxiety over how we measure up or how our work will be received stifles our possibilities and suppresses our passion. Constantly comparing ourselves to others imposes hierarchies that either give us a false sense of accomplishment or debilitating discouragement. Views of the world that emphasize scarcity of resources or accolades limit our perception and awareness of opportunities just below the surface. The Zanders advocate that we change the context of our thinking: step away from the measurement world and step into the dream allowing life to unfold full of possibilities. A practice that guides us toward this shift in outlook is called “Giving an A”. Taken from a classroom experience where Benjamin Zander gave the entire class an “A” on the first day of school, “Giving an A”  removes the measurement world and presents a vision to live into. “Giving an A” assumes the best and gives people the respect that allows them to realize their best selves. “This ‘A’ is not an expectation to live up to, but a possibility to live into.” Through giving an “A” we allow those we meet to escape the “stranglehold of judgment” and free ourselves from the measurement world as well.

            Many of the principles and practices that the Zanders offer stand in a delicious tension with one another. One of the criticisms I have often had with self-help books is that they place an unrealistic burden on the individual and overstate one’s ability to control an array of environmental constraints. The Zanders escape this tendency, in my view, through maintaining conceptual tensions. For example, the Zanders instruct us to be a contribution. “In the game of contribution you wake up each day and bask in the notion that you are a gift to others.” Another similar practice is to lead from any chair by giving way to our passion. Stop holding back out of fear and spark the possibility in others. Enroll them into our possibility. Then we read about “Rule Number 6” which states, “Don’t take yourself so seriously!” Another example of such a tension exists in the outlook of “Being the Board”. To be the board refers to approaching life as though in a board game where we recognize that our assumptions contribute to how the “board” is set up rather than just focusing on the moveable pieces. Owning that our assumptions make certain things possible helps us avoid downward spiral talk and instead focuses us on radiating possibility. “Gracing yourself with responsibility for everything that happens in your life leaves your spirit whole and leaves you free to choose again.” Be the board and we are free to direct our attention to what we want to see happen instead of what we need “to win or fight or fix.” This is a focus on making a difference not gaining control. Yet, the Zanders also recognize the importance of seeing circumstances as they really are. They call this principle “It is what it is”. Possibility is all around but rooted in reality.

            The Zanders provide a treasure trove of insights into how to maximize possibility in our individual lives and communities. I highly recommend this text for the practical approach it offers to making a virtue of possibility. The value of possibility needs to expand and grow across our world if we are to meet the challenges that face us.