Attitudes

Published by bgthomas

What is the most important thing about you?

Your circumstances?
Your abilities?
Your background?
Your family?
Your connections?
Your appearance?

Clearly all these things are defining, all of them are important, but none of them is decisive. I would argue that all of them are less significant than your attitudes. Your attitudes have been shaped by many elements, but in the end, they are yours and you own them. Your attitudes reflect how you choose to see the world.

Here are some definitions of attitude.

  1. an opinion or general feeling about something
  2. a physical posture, either conscious or unconscious, especially while interacting with others
  3. an arrogant or assertive manner or stance assumed as a challenge or for effect (informal)
  4. the angle of an aircraft in relation to the direction of the airflow or to the horizontal plane
  5. the angle of a spacecraft in relation to its direction of movement

All of the definitions are relevant to this discussion.

You must recognize that you have attitudes. We all have attitudes. We have attitudes about every feature of our lives; we have attitudes coming out the ears and the toes. What are your attitudes? Can you describe them; can you write them down? If so, what do you make of them?

You must separate your attitudes from some abstract notion of the truth. That we humans have access to the Truth is a highly questionable proposition. As a working proposition, it is far safer to assume that we don’t know what the truth is.

It is more reasonable to think of our attitudes as being like our angle to the air. Certain angles don’t work at all. You won’t take off, you will crash on the way, or you won’t be able to land. There are, however, a variety of angles that do work. The air is external reality. It is vast, highly changeable, and unpredictable but the air does operate according to certain principles. If you intend to become airborne, you must choose the correct attitudes.

Note the word choose in the previous paragraph. We tend to think of attitudes as something we have like brown eyes or a small nose, something for which we hold no responsibility. This is nonsense and worse than nonsense, it is pernicious. We may have acquired many of our attitudes unconsciously, but we must become aware of them and work with them consciously. They are the soil, which nourishes or starves our actions.

Become conscious of your attitudes. Change the damaging attitudes. Adopt the attitudes that will lead to the highest levels of work.

Note: These thoughts derive in great part from my discussions with Keith Hill.