Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

September 23, 2009

Rules, Negative Data, and Incurable Idealists

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 8:54 am

What If Everything We Believed In Isn’t True?

Change the World!

I’m no computer. My operating system was developed at home, versioned at school, and beat up some through the decades and detours I’ve experienced.

Don’t run in the house. Use your indoor voice. Do your work before you play. Color inside the lines. Sit up straight. Be polite. Each basic command was entered in my head. If I do these things, I will operate properly — so they told me.

I also captured information about family and fairy tales, heroes and angels, creativity and planets, inventors and imagination, and artists, and poetry, fairness and ideals. In my life I’ve talked about and witnessed awe-inspiring and wonder-full things. These concepts are in my hidden system files — read-only, undeletable files.

I’m bombarded daily with data. But she is supposed to be your friend. Data. He lost his job. Data. There have been more bombings. Data. Want to make $4000/day online? Data miner. Still data. That’s all it is — data. I don’t have unlimited memory, so unnecessary negative data doesn’t get saved —period.

Some days the data causes my mind to fragment in unfamiliar and unproductive ways.

Bits and bytes of negative data chip away at my world view and therefore at me. The Tigger in me finds myself quoting Eeyore. “Pathetic, that’s what it is. Pathetic.”

What if the world is the awful place that keeps presenting itself to me?

But try as I might, I can’t—still won’t—give up on the world. I still believe in family, and fairy tales, and heroes, and angels, and creativity, and planets, and fairness, and inventors, and imagination, and artists, and poetry, and ideals, and so many awe-inspiring and wonder-full things. They were written on my soul as a child. I can’t delete them, lucky for me. I might have wanted to once, but not now, not again, not ever.

The world needs incurable idealists. We balance out the hardcore cynics. It has to do with joy, and hope, and possibility.

The world needs people who believe in it as much as we need people who believe in us.

As we believe so we become.

Are you willing to believe in a world that works?

We can change the world just like that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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15 Comments to “Rules, Negative Data, and Incurable Idealists”

  1. September 23rd, 2009 at 9:36 am
    Karin H said

    Hi Liz

    LOL, with all this analogy about computers and data I think we need a virus scanner to bounce the too negative cynical data - and whitelist the positive, workable, dreamful, ideals and poetry/prose.

    Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)

  2. September 23rd, 2009 at 9:39 am
    Pace Smith said

    YES!!!!!

    This post is amazing. Well, really it’s that this SENTIMENT is amazing. It makes me ridiculously happy.

    As of this moment, Liz, you can count me among your 1,000 true fans.

  3. September 23rd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
    charles said

    I think it doesn’t really matter actually.

    The important thing is…

    Keeps an open mind, and keep learning as it comes. Be really good to things as lies will not go far and will always reflect back on us if we do so…

  4. September 23rd, 2009 at 1:46 pm
    Todd Smith said

    I hope they never find a cure for our disease. :) they can keep pouring in data, but we can still choose what to do with it.

  5. September 23rd, 2009 at 5:54 pm
    Internet Strategist @GrowMap said

    We have one advantage that computers will never have - what is in our hearts. There we will find the “cure” for the state of the world.

    Question everything. Develop discernment. Read, learn from and support others who listen to their hearts too. Like Liz.

  6. September 24th, 2009 at 7:44 am
    Christa M. Miller said

    I guess because I work with a profession that itself is bombarded with negative, I have to accept at least some of that stuff. I can’t push it away and still do an effective job. For me, accepting awful things is part of “listening,” and the reality is, it’s much less for me than it is for the people I work with.

    I’m still an incurable idealist, but I’ve learned to temper it, either to back off my views when someone isn’t ready to hear them, or to gently prod with “what ifs” so I can help others accept something more positive.

  7. September 24th, 2009 at 8:43 am
    Anne said

    On a morning that started with a lot of useless and negative input, you reminded me that I can DELETE data that I don’t need or want!
    thanks for turning my day around.

  8. September 28th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hey Anne,
    Sorry I wasn’t here sooner to when you wrote this comment. I want every minute to reinforce that lovely thought!

  9. September 28th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Christa!
    Just be careful. It’s so easy to become what we see and hear most. You’re so good at finding the possibilities. I hope that you’ll always be able to look inside the negative to find the gold.

  10. September 28th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Ah Internet Strategist!
    Spoken like a true gardener and decent human being. You inspire with your generosity. I watch you. I know.

  11. September 28th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Todd,
    I call it getting to the heart of the data. You do it with your camera. I do it with my words. :)
    It’s nice to know you’re there.

  12. September 28th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Pace,
    As I said on Twitter, I wanted to reply to this immediately. Thank you for sharing such an ethusiastic response. You inspire me. That fan feeling goes both ways.

    You’re not a stranger anymore.

  13. September 28th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Karin,
    I can always count on you to be right with me. This time I got you though, you couldn’t put a hedgehog in your computer, could you? heh heh

  14. September 29th, 2009 at 3:24 am
    Karin H said

    LOL Liz

    (I’ll let you know how I - and the hedgehog - get on trying it, there must be a way if you believe strongly enough in it ;-))

    Karin H

  15. October 14th, 2009 at 4:14 am
    Karin H said

    Hi Liz

    Just to let you know yesterday I did discover to put a hedgehog in my pc - with almost instant result ;-)
    I’m even thought of a new book (or white paper) idea to write about it and share it

    Told you I would find a way ;-)

    Karin H

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