ZENgagement: What is new is old (Self-Reliance)
Is employee engagement really a new topic?
Here is a wonderful snippet of poetry from Ralph Waldo Emerson written in 1841, 166 years ago, on self-reliance:
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance, 1841.
Photo Credit: do what you are afraid to do… by http://www.flickr.com/photos/m_e_l_o_d_y/350575931/
David has a 20/20 vision, even though he is also color blind. He is dedicated to fostering a 20% global increase in employee engagement by the year 2020. Join him in this quest as low levels of engagement are bad for employees, organizations, customers, and the economy.
Hi, David,
This reminds me of another quote, “We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget that the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it’s all about.” –Joseph Campbell…
The sages and the Masters all say that the path to liberation is found in entering the stillness within. To experience that stillness, we need to be willing to regularly stop the activity for a while. Presence and self-reflection as part of one’s lifestsyle, even at work.
Peter:
I appreciated your zengagement quotation on stillness.
David