It doesn’t feel much like the first day of spring. Personally I feel sorry for any small furry creatures emerging today looking vainly for their shadow. It brings to mind the punchline of the old Flanders & Swan routine about Stonehenge:

“…then we shall know it is Summer.
Well I’d better help you brush the snow off it then”

For some reason my reflections of winter are all about the real and metaphorical snow brushing. The fundamental decency of people who’ve rallied round when things were tough. Lots of little acts of kindness given and received. A time of reestablishing contact with lots of good people.

Friends, colleagues, neighbours and relations. The sort of people willing to have chat about rubbish, lend you a car, like your random musing and help you working out the meaning of the archaic words your daughter gets given in her spelling test.

Yesterdays corker was ‘friendlihood’ which seems somehow apt.

As our friend Nick was able to inform us after consulting his full OED:

“… friendlihood dates from at least 1390 when it was spelt frendelehyde and citations go right up to 1481, when it was frendlyhode (according to the Earl of Wessex). Nothing since then.”

It seems a shame its died out of use. We could do with a word for people being friendly to others – not as exclusive as community or neghbourhood, or as intimate as frendship. Perhaps Groundhog Day is as good a day as any to clear some snow and not be scared to be friendly  - to cast a shadow that touches others.

For as another helpful and clever person once put it so well ’gnomon is an island’.

Her day is often built of small things – and each one of those things matter.  Moving a hairbrush, forgetting to leave a door open, not putting something away, mis-matching socks,  may seem like a small thing to me, but it doesn’t take many of these for say a whole getting kids to school routine to be completely derailed.

Her day is like a tower of kids blocks. Move just one and the planned out day can come crashing ‘hey ho rumble oh’ to the ground.

This counts as a small apology – and a commitment to do better in the future at watching the small things, and helping to maintain that precarious balance.

I was inspired by an article “We Will Embrace the Reality of Progress” written by Kevin Kelly the editor of Wired.

In it he quotes Rabbi Zalman Schater-Shalomi ‘There is more good than evil in the world – but not by much”.

Kevin goes on to point out that by the laws of compund interest that is enough.

Communities and cultures where everyone manages to make things better by 1% or even one tenth of 1% will have rapid positive progress.

I find that thought fantastically empowering. I no longer need to worry about how I can  make a huge and significant contribution. I don’t even need to worry that sometimes I’ll make things worse by my actions. As long as, on balance I can make things slightly better every day then I’ll be playing my part.

There is really nothing more that needs to be said.

• What is the problem and how have I framed it?
• Can I solve the problem I have set?
• Do I like what I get when I solve this problem?
• In solving this problem in this way made the situation coherent?
• have I made it congruent with my fundamental theories and values?
• Have I kept my enquiry moving?

Experienced practitioners work by setting problems in a way they think they can solve.

I’ll qualify that ‘solve’. I mean setting a problem that helps them understand and change the situation. Practitioners don’t necessarily need to know if the new problem will find a final result when they start.

The key point is  the way they set it out and frame the question. Their approach sets a pattern to the enquiry. A pattern in which they have confidence they’ll get to some type of answer.

Once the shape can be seen, questioning how much I like what is emerging is a very powerful idea.  It makes me acknowledge that many answers may be possible. That there is always going to be a judgement call based on my theories and values.

Previously I’d seen unintentional consequences as a failure. Its really  powerful to see them as a way of listening to the situation. A new starting point.  A way to evaluate some assumptions. Even a way to stay curious about the investigation.

Each  try I learn more. In working through to a workable answer I learn more about what my own values are. I gain a better understanding of what matters to me, and to others I’m working with along the way.

Checking at the end if I kept enquiry moving is such a good idea.  I want to be able to give back something that can be used as a new starting point. If I can’t do that it may be a sign that the answer is too fragile  or just hasn’t been explored enough.

It is very easy for me to hear every conversation as either a request for action or a criticisim or both. My mind races and I am into full scale flight fight or solution mode before the sentence is finished.

Groundhogmum complains that if she mentioned there was a paint in B&Q she liked I’d be at the store before she had chance to tell me the colour.

If empathy is about trying on someone else’s shoes.  I should at lest wait to get them on my feet. To feel where they pinch before I start trying to run. If I don’t do this the results can be painful and embarrassing.

Perhaps I’m missing something. Everyone uses these networks in different ways. Personally  I don’t understand the appeal of building the biggest network possible as quickly as I can. People matter too much  to me for that.

I want to keep my network to the people I care about, or am at least interested in.

Yes people say stuff that is irritating or irrelevant. That is important. That is one of the things I love about conversation – it goes in new and unexpected directions.

If I wanted an effcient network if just trawl ‘mashable’ and the like all day.

I’ve made a call today.  I’ll prune my own network, but  not by relevance or usefulness. I’ll prune by how much attention I can afford.

I want to contribute more and worry less.  This means I would far rather have the space to really listen to all of what people are saying.

If I don’t have the space to do them that courtesy then I’m not really following them at all.

The core conditions he picks out just feel right.  Simple enough to remember and the reasoning makes sense. They also feel like a physical core. If you take the words, practices and techniques away from all the other helpful systems – its pretty much what remains.

There has to be a genuine problem that someone wants to solve. I know myself that if deep down I don’t care no matter how sensible the argument for change more urgent things will undermine my best intentions.

Being honest with one’s self and others congruence, integrity whatever you want to call it. On the idea of matching actions and feelings Rodgers is spot on. I know I need to be able to trust myself , and for others to be able to trust me. Trust is far easier when what you say and what you feel are in sync. I also know that for me this is an area that needs work.  I worry a lot about how people will react to what I say. This makes it tough to be honest and open all the time.

A lot of it comes back to maintaining positive regard. I find it far easier to see the best in others than I do in myself. It is a form of dishonesty that I need to tackle. At some other time I need to look at why if I trust others I don’t trust their reactions to me

My time is up empathy and practice vs systems will have to wait for another day

Reviewing my old post its clear that starting this blog I had no  clear idea what I wanted to write or how to write it.  I still don’t. But at least now looking at it with a bit more perspective I have a better idea why I started writing and why I couldn’t make it work.

I started this blog at what was a really high time in my personal life and a low time in my professional life.The earth shatteringly good pleasures of being a father were conflicting with a a dull ache that was my a professional life.

The company I work for had been through some tough times and many people who had survived were feeling bruised. Peole were still enthusiastic for what they did but trying to adapt to a less certain future with different opportunities.

Through all this I was ‘surviving’ but it didn’t feel right. I didn’t have the same luxury of being able to read, study, and use my spare time to find ways forward. Work and ‘free’ time  had to be compartmentalised in a way I’d never had to face before. It was the only way  to find the space and time my family deserved.

Looking back, the blog was mean to be almost my ‘notes to self’. Tracking the good things in the 7 minute gaps I had. My way of making public commitments to things to try and goad myself into action.

It never really worked because it was too nervous.  I was too half-hearted, too focused on doing something clean shiny and professional for a mythical audience to write what I was really feeling.

So I’m going to try again keeping it as simple and genuine as possible.

Ian McKenzie (Ian’s Messy Desk) offered a nice straightforward list of practical suggestions Blog Action Day: How To Eliminate Poverty as did Ibrahim over at Zen College Life Blog Action Day: Poverty

Lifehacker had a rich set of contributions  during the day. I enjoyed the pragmatic guide to fighting poverty by getting rid of your old kit  Donate Your Old Hardware to Those Who Can Use It [Blog Action Day 2008] and Gina Trapani’s very personal and obviously heartfelt take Two Great Charities at Work to Beat Poverty [Blog Action Day 2008], however the one that struck a chord for me was Jason Fitzpatrick’s article  Attack Poverty Through Literacy [Blog Action Day 2008] which very neatly echoed the Sidonie Gabrielle quote that “Real poverty is lack of books.” used by Henrik Edberg in Three Timeless Thoughts on Poverty over at ‘Personal Development with The Positivity Blog’

Four Easy Reasons to Ignore World Poverty from Charlie at Productive Flourishing contained some eye popping statistics as well as knocking fown the type of myths and woolly-headed thinking that prevent people from doing more to help. A tack also taken by Jay White in  The Poverty Myth over at Dumb Little Man who soundly challenged the idea that as individuals there is nothing can do to help.

Celine Roque at Web Worker Daily wrote a very thought-provoking piece about her own experience of the empowering nature of web work Blog Action Day: Web Work as an Alternative to Overseas Worker Migration

LJ at  the SimpleProductivityBlog.com in Blog Action Day – Poverty suggested lots of ideas for helping locally while Ellie from Living The Law Of Attraction Don’t Fight Poverty… Support Abundance! showed that there are no geographic boundries to helping others on a personal and individual level through networks such as Kiva which I’d not been aware of before. Agentsully at Life Learning Todayalso mentioned kiva as one of her many simple and straightforward ideas in Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty, When You Help Others You Help Yourself

In both articles there was a distinct message that by focusing on the positive rather than the negative – that creating abundance not tackling poverty should be our aim. A thought given an intersting twist by Lyman Reed Though Abraham-Hicks on the Economy – Charles Fillmore’s Prosperity – For Blog Action Day ‘08 who picking up on Ellie’s article showed that poverty through not making the most of your resources is a sin.

Who would have thought that poverty could produce such rich pickings.

According to the poverty facts and stats over at global issues 11 billion US dollars or roughly 6.3 billion ponds a year is spent on ice cream in Europe.

A large percentage of that ice-cream is made by companies that many parents, including myself and groundhog mum have decided that the don’t want to support for other ethical reasons.

That aside, as a simple thought experiment if every household in Europe made their own ice cream that would be a lot of households that would be better off.

Our own experience of using our own wee ice cream maker is that a litre of home made ice  cream costs less than a quarter of the commercial product. Scaling up that would release nearly 5 billion pounds which could be put to far better use.

Even if only one quarter of the saving was passed on to help eliminate the real grinding poverty that today is about thats one billion pounds would make a huge difference. All it would take is for those who can afford to to switch from buying expensive ice-cream and to put aside a few pence ever time they benefit from eating cheaper home made ice-cream.The more ice-cream eaten the more everyone benefits.

If you don’t know what to do with the money – then read some of the information at the link below. I defy anyone to read through the info and not find something to be outraged about.

Go on, make a difference make ice-cream together as a family and help someone at the same time.

Its certainly a campaign that would be supported by my family on grounds of taste alone.