Questions of Leadership, Motivation, and Socialism

 

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.

You must travel it by yourself.

It is not far. It is within reach.

Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.

Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.”

-- Walt Whitman

Should leaders make quick decisions?

Choices and decisions are situational, and the more important they are the more time should be taken before any action is implemented. However, life and death can remove time from the equation. As much as a leader might want more time, this situation is where the rubber meets the road. This is where experience comes into play.

You make the best decision based on the best intelligence and the facts on hand. You, then, implement action and the cards will fall where they may. The best action a leader can take is to bring a nuclear weapon to a knife fight. As a leader, you need to own the situation. The choices should be to control the outcome or don’t get involved at all. The choice will prove what kind of leader you are. You tuck tail and run, leaving the innocent to fend for themselves, or you stand your ground and bring everything to bear. Choices and decisions are, very often, situational.

Is it bad to be effective but not efficient?

It is so much better to be both, obviously, but if you have to be one or the other, be effective. We could pull an inspection from a marginal to an excellent because we were very effective, even though we were so much less than efficient. The inspectors were more interested in excellent results, not in how we got the job done. How we win the battle is not as important to them as winning the battle.

Sometimes, however, this philosophy can bite you in the ass. Afghanistan is a recent example. The Administration wanted immediate results, and they got them at great cost to our reputation and in lives lost. The military should have stood its ground and demanded more time so they could be efficient as well as effective. They should have destroyed all the equipment and supplies before they left, a bad mistake that military leadership should be called down for, and this administration will be answering for if and when we go back to correct our mistake, as we always do. 

Why does my life not seem to be getting better or even moving?

What have you done, that’s new? What have you learned, recently? Who have you introduced yourself to, lately? Who have you helped, selflessly? Are you, actually, living life, or just waiting for it to happen?

If I sit down on my path, close my eyes, empty my mind, and do nothing but breathe, I am wasting precious oxygen others need in order to move forward. If you are doing anything constructive, you are living and moving. If you are on this side of the dirt, life is already better.

Learn to be truly happy always and in all things. It isn’t about the destination as much as it is about the journey. Maybe it’s time to get back on the bus?

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.”

-- Anaïs Nin

What can one do to live a better life if it's from a country whose overall future does not seem so bright?

So, it is very good that you see the problem. The country doesn’t have a very bright future. So, now you know what not to rely on, those things you have no control over. This allows you to focus on what you do have control over - yourself. Your good choices and decisions are what's going to bring you into a better life. Stop looking for the country to assist you, as it sounds as if they have more than enough on their plate as it is. It is your life, your path, and only you can walk it. Now is the perfect time for you to take the first step.

What is important in a legacy?

That it is good, moral, ethical, and righteous. Anything else can be viewed as lacking.  Socialism, for example, is, historically, not a very good legacy. 

Could Socialism succeed in the future though it failed in the past?

No, and those that push it are, truth be known, the very reason it is designed to fail. They desire power and position through the very socialism they try to sell. Let’s look at the current iteration of socialism, through the lens of the late Yuri Bezmenov (1939–1993), a Soviet KGB agent and informant who defected to the West:

“The useful idiots, the leftists who are idealistically believing in the beauty of the Soviet socialist or Communist or whatever system, when they get disillusioned, they become the worst enemies. That’s why my KGB instructors specifically made the point: never bother with leftists. Forget about these political prostitutes. Aim higher. They serve a purpose only at the stage of destabilization of a nation. For example, your leftists in the United States: all these professors and all these beautiful civil rights defenders. They are instrumental in the process of the subversion only to destabilize a nation. When their job is completed, they are not needed anymore. They know too much. Some of them, when they get disillusioned, when they see that Marxist-Leninists come to power—obviously they get offended—they think that they will come to power. That will never happen, of course. They will be lined up against the wall and shot.”

-- Yuri Bezmenov

What is your motivation to live?

Well, let’s see, “life” would probably be a good motivation. If a person doesn’t think life is a good enough motivation, there are many of us who could sure use the extra oxygen they’re wasting.  Just saying.

Can a person just choose not to believe and just exist?

Choose not to believe in what? Many of us failed the “mind-reading” class.

How do I answer a question I don't know as a teacher?

Tell the class you don’t know, and research the answer together. No one is perfect, and the sooner they learn this the better, and who better to learn it from than a teacher.  It is, after all, why you're there.

“There’s no shame in admitting what you don’t know. The only shame is pretending you know all the answers.”

-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

How do you stay motivated every day?

I refuse to waste God’s gift of another day in paradise and another chance to excel in this life. Besides, the alternative just simply sucks for me. No motivation? Not in my lexicon.

What image would you like people to recall you by?

Nude would be a sight they’d never forget.

What are your thoughts on the phrase, "When a habit costs money, it's a hobby"?

So, drug use is a hobby, now?

“What is a hobby anyway? Where is the line of demarcation between hobbies and ordinary normal pursuits? I have been unable to answer this question to my own satisfaction. At first blush, I am tempted to conclude that a satisfactory hobby must be in a large degree useless, inefficient, laborious, or irrelevant. Certainly many of our most satisfying avocations today consist of making something by hand which machines can usually make more quickly and cheaply, and sometimes better. Nevertheless, I must in fairness admit that in a different age the mere fashioning of a machine might have been an excellent hobby... Today the invention of a new machine, however noteworthy to industry, would, as a hobby, be trite stuff. Perhaps we have here the real inwardness of our own question: A hobby is a defiance of the contemporary. It is an assertion of those permanent values which the momentary eddies of social evolution have contravened or overlooked. If this is true, then we may also say that every hobbyist is inherently a radical and that his tribe is inherently a minority.

This, however, is serious: Becoming serious is a grievous fault in hobbyists. It is an axiom that no hobby should either seek or need rational justification. To wish to do it is reason enough. To find reasons why it is useful or beneficial converts it at once from an avocation into an industry–lowers it at once to the ignominious category of an 'exercise' undertaken for health, power, or profit. Lifting dumbbells is not a hobby. It is a confession of subservience, not an assertion of liberty.”

-- Aldo Leopold

Is it possible to fall in love with two people at a time?

Only two? Oh, my goodness! YES! And, for totally different reasons, I'd have to confess.

How can I take revenge on someone I hate?

Don’t. It lowers you to their level - not a good thing. And, lose the hate. I’ve been there - also, not a good thing. Hate is counterproductive and becomes who you are. Rise above it and become something more constructive. If you seriously want revenge, ignore them.

Why don’t I like to share my opinions?

Fear of being challenged?

“People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but that doesn't stop you from having your own opinion.”

-- Anne Frank

How can a man make themselves like a child?

Falling in love usually works.

How do you know if you're falling out of love?

You find used condoms under the bed.

Have you heard of a Broken Attachment in Relationships?

Lorena Bobbitt, although, she didn’t break it, she actually cut it off and then the hospital had to attach it. More of a “cutoff re-attachment” for them.  If she broke it afterward, however, it might then be considered a "broken attachment."

"Given everything he'd put me through, he was seriously lucky that's all I took a knife to. Don't think I didn't fantasize about going all Lorena Bobbitt on his ass."

-- Brandi Glanville

 

Editor's Note

(Re: disclaimer cum "get out of jail free" card)

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion. It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other. An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so. This is also why, occasionally, I will present an "opinion" just to stir an emotional pot. Where it may sound like I agree with the statements made, I'm more interested in getting others to consider an alternate viewpoint. 

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and while engaging in peaceful and constructive discussion, in an arena of mutual respect, concerning those opinions put forth. After over twenty years with military intelligence, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human. God's test for us is what we learn from the experience, and what we do afterward.

Pastor Tony spent 22 years with the United States Air Force Intelligence as a planner, analyst, briefer, instructor, and senior manager. He spent 17 years, following his service career, working with the premier, world-renowned, Institutional Review Board helping to protect the rights of human subjects involved in pharmaceutical research. Ordained 1n 2013 as an "interfaith" minister, he founded the Congregation for Religious Tolerance in response to intolerance shown by Christians toward peaceful Islam. As the weapon for his war on intolerance he chose the pen, and wages his "battle" in the guise of the Congregation's official online blog, The Path, of which he is both author and editor. "The Path" offers a vehicle for commentary and guidance concerning one's own personal, spiritual, path toward peace and the final destination for us all. He currently resides in Pass Christian, Mississippi, where he volunteered as a chaplain at the regional medical center.

Feel free to contact Pastor Tony:  tolerantpastor@gmail.com