[Ailist] Inspiring quote

[Robyn Stratton-Berkessel]

Dear Toni,

Thank you for this magnificent quote!  I share your perspective: having a
desire for a future - based on the best of our past experience and what the
imagination can possibly conceive - is to "be part of who we are as humans."
The capacity we have to reconnect with our wholeness and each other, and not
focus on the gaps and chasms that tear us apart also fills me with
gratitude.

I am reminded of Viktor Frankl's "In Search of Meaning".

Kind regards,

Robyn

Robyn Stratton-Berkessel
Creator, Positive Matrix, www.positivematrix.com
Founder, L.I.T. Global www.litglobal.com
+1 732 291 0462
+1 917 816 5597 (mobile)
Skype: robynsb


-----Original Message-----
From: ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu
[mailto:ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Toni Dosik
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 11:00 AM
To: ailist at lists.business.utah.edu
Subject: [Ailist] Inspiring quote

All,

I am a partner in a consulting firm that uses AI, including SOAR, in our
work with nonprofits and communities.  I've been interested in AI since the
1990's because it resonated with me personally and it fit with what I knew
from my professional experience to be a way of looking at the world that
would move organizations forward, building trust and a shared vision.

I am also a member of a Havurah, a Jewish community in my small town in
southwest Ohio, Yellow Springs.  We have built our own prayer book and in it
is a quote that I think is very Appreciative.  I am moved by it every time I
read it.  It is a good reminder that thinking "appreciatively" is something
that has, in fact, been with us a long time, and may, in fact, be part of
who we are as humans.

For those of you who are not familiar with Howard Zinn, he is an historian,
political scientist, and social activist, very active in both the civil
rights movement and the anti-Viet Nam war movement.  He has written numerous
books and is now retired from teaching.

Here is the quote:

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.  It is based on
the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of
compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.  What we choose to emphasize in
this complex history will determine our lives.  If we see only the worst, it
destroys our capacity to do something,  If we remember those times and
places -- and there are so many -- where people have behaved magnificently,
this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending
this spinning top of a world in a different direction.  And if we do act, in
however a small way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future.
The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we
think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is
itself a marvelous victory."

I do not know the date of the quote.

Toni Dosik
Antonia Atlas Dosik
Hyden Consulting, Inc.
Springfield, Ohio 
937 767 2324





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