“Man should not be in the service of society; society should be in the service of man. When man is in the service of society, you have a monster state, and that’s what is threatening the world at this minute.” —Joseph Campbell The first mission of any company should be to make work meaningful, rewarding,…

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“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere—it is within each…

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“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” —Henry Ford The traditional definition of winning is Darwinian. Every winner requires an equal and offsetting loser. For me to win, someone else must lose. Picture the Roman Colosseum, where it was kill or be killed—eat or be eaten. According to this view,…

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Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe. Therefore the Master takes action by letting things take their course. He remains as calm at the end as at the beginning. He simply reminds people of who they have always been….

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“To have a comeback you have to have a setback.” —Mr. T Falmouth High School—January 1983. I jump for a rebound. The next thing I know, I’m lying on the court, clutching my right shoulder in extreme pain. I would learn an hour later at the hospital that I’d dislocated my shoulder. Shoulders are pretty…

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“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom.” —Mahatma Gandhi   The potential blessing of this essay series is that I am writing from experience. The potential problem with this essay series is that I am writing from experience. * * * When I decided to write this yearlong series about shared…

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“Strange what being slowed down could do to a person.” —Nicholas Sparks   Even though the gymnasium was filled with whistles, shouting, and squeaking sneakers, I can still hear the coach’s wisdom nearly forty years later. I was at SWISH basketball camp at the University of Southern Maine, a junior in high school preparing for…

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“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” —Martin Luther King This is essay #24, the halfway mark of my 2021 writing project. Two dozen essays have been shared and two dozen are yet to be created. Thank you for engaging and participating….

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In 1938 the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was, in fact, “the Greatest Show on Earth.” Their annual tour opened in the spring of that year with a twenty-three-day sojurn at Madison Square Garden. The circus was so popular that it performed twice daily in New York (forty-six shows in all) before caravanning…

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2021 IDEA-SHARING ADVENTURE SERIES BY KEVIN HANCOCK “Your choices and efforts, be they small or grand, define who you are.” —Richelle Goodrich Henry and Mamie Wilson migrated north from South Carolina to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1921. “I believe he was about the first black man they ever hired at US Steel,” his son Tim would…

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2021 IDEA-SHARING ADVENTURE SERIES BY KEVIN HANCOCK “Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportionate to each other.” —Leon Trotsky What are the origins of bureaucracy? How did “power” historically become centralized in command-and-control hierarchies? How did certain groups come to exert a defining influence over others? The answer, at its most fundamental level, is through…

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