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Do Numbers Lie?
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Wednesday, August 02, 2006Good day ... again,
It’s an interesting choice isn’t it ... to “DECIDE” it’s going to be a good day ... instead of waiting for a good day to show up. This is one of the many options I think become available to us as we begin more and more to choose our lives ... what kind of life we will have in essence. This is at the heart of what I spend my time doing, both on my own AND when I’m with others ... especially my clients. Sometimes it’s as simple as offering an embedded suggestion ... “Have A Good Day!” ... like a greeting of sorts ...
I been writing and thinking about the Graves Model and what I like to call “Graves Modeling,” by which I mean modeling out the responses that are evident in a person, or a business, or an organization or a whole society using Dr. Clare W. Graves model of values. I see this model and the modeling process I refer to as highly dynamic, BTW so did Dr. Graves. He often said two things - A) that people are capable of accessing all levels up to the level they’ve evolved to themselves at any given time - so they are not “a Five” or “a Six” ... they are not stuck in a level but are free to move through the levels of these values sets he’s described as is most appropriate to their situation from their point of view, and B) that all people should be allowed to “BE” ... which is how he referred to acknowledging and respecting where people are in their own journey. These two points are at the center of this dynamic modeling process as I use it.
A confession ... I think of all people (myself included) as being on a journey, a path of personal evolution. By the very nature of being alive and moving through the world, especially in regard to others, we can’t help but to be more aware of ourselves - even if in an extremely tenuous way, even if ever so slowly. One of the things I’d add into this thinking is that the further along we’ve come - in terms of our personal evolution - the more quickly we move along this path. Essentially, the more we know already the larger the base we have to build upon ... a “critical mass” as my own mentor Roye Fraser liked to call it.
What’s interesting to think about regarding Dr. Graves material can be how it creates conflict ... as I mentioned ... but also how it creates or at least can create community. These values seem to progress through a movement not only of shifting referential positions - internal/self ... external/other - but through a larger and larger scope of consideration as well. Initially, the only consideration is about survival and self, Level One. The individual/societal evolution expands from there through a landscape of social awareness to include other in relation to self all the way up and through Level Six. Then there is a quantum shift ... systemic interest overrides self-interest at Level Seven ... at all along the way as the evolution was building there was more and more room to include the consideration of others, including a consideration of the system at large - e.g.: the environment, the planet ... - within individual and societal perception, thinking and response.
As the system evolves, and the individual within it as well, there is the potential to include more variety, more diversity and open the boundaries to allow for differences while remaining connected. I think this may be the basis for community ... allowing for differences while remaining connected. I’d even offer a larger possibility ... the more difference we can and do tolerate the stronger and more well-formed the community we belong to and engage in.
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
PS - Download (or listen to online if you prefer) my sample audio file absolutely free (you don’t even have to fill in any stupid forms - although you’d be a fool not to register as a member of this site in my opinion) from my newest program “UnconventionalAdvice™” ... in any and every case ... ENJOY!
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