>>> Rol Fessenden <76234.3636@compuserve.com> 12/17 9:12 PM >>>
>The question of personal mastery is the most important of all the
>disciplines Senge identifies. It is the discipline most people prefer to
>avoid talking about or thinking about. When the stories of personal
>mastery have arisen in the past, they have been pretty personal,
>powerful, and sometimes painful. They have been wonderful stories. I
>hope there are more of them.
Rol, et. al,
I think that the reason we don't talk more about personal mastery is that
it involves much more than mere cognitive learning. It reaches deep into
the soul of man, and encompasses his experiential and emotional learnings
as well.
In my experience people are afraid of their inner-self; that part of them
that feels passionately about things, that is angry, that is happy, that
knows what's best for the person, not necessarily for others. There are
many reasons why people are afraid o f this.
1. People are loved for what they do to satisfy others. If they act in
their own self-interest, congruent with their inner feelings and desires,
they're afraid of not being loved or accepted.
2. People are taught, since they were children, that they couldn't trust
their own instincts and feelings; they needed to "listen" to someone with
more experience and wisdom (i.e. parents, teachers, church leaders,
managers, etc.)
3. People often have this vague sense of soemthing buried deep within them
that is yearning to find expression, but it goes against the established
values/customs/mores of society and therefore the urges are ignored and
never acted upon.
I have experienced all three limitations. It took a tremendous amount of
courage and determination for me to be willing to discover and freely
express myself. I still struggle with it. Take a simple instance: My wife
asks me what I want for Christmas. Simple. Everyone knows what they want,
right? Well I want a new PDA . . . a US Robotics Palm Pilot. But I know
that my wife wants to buy me new clothes, and perhaps a few books. I went
through quite a period of time where I was deeply frustrated because I
couldn't get the courage to say, "What I want is a new PDA."
When I finally spit it out the other night I felt incredibly good. Whether
I get a PDA or not is not the point; the point is I expressed my inner
feelings, despite the unintentional pressure my wife put on me to want
something else.
This is a very simple example. But it demonstrates how easily we can learn
to separate our true desires and feelings from our cognitive desires and
feelings. . .how we can adopt someone elses desires as our own so we can
be loved and accepted.
I hope this sheds some light on the issue. . .
-- Benjamin Compton DWS Computer Consultants "The GroupWise Integration Experts" E-Mail: bcompton@emailsolutions.com http://www.emailsolutions.comLearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>