Showing Up Or Showing Off?

Here is the conundrum. We live in an increasingly social world, where almost everything we do and say becomes public at some point. It's easy to get caught up in that idea and spend a lot of time grooming our image for public consumption; but if we're not putting in our time and following some kind of internal call to action, we begin to value style above substance... and spend more time talking about greatness than actually working towards it.

I watched three great TED talks yesterday: Chris Hadfield on fear and how to overcome it (What I learned from going blind in space); Anne-Marie Slaughter on overcoming our cultural bias towards the relative value of breadwinning and caregiving, moving from the era of feminism to the era of humanism (Can we "have it all"?); and Aparna Rao, sharing a comical yet profound artistic expression regarding the nature of performance and interaction (Art that craves your attention).

The juxtaposition of these diverse presentations causes some internal reflection and a pattern-seeking response. How do one and one and one add up to five or ten when we combine these insights and apply them? How do these ideas overlap and interact with each other and with my experience? What do I take up and run with in my next steps forward?

You may come away from these talks with something different, but this is what I gleaned:

• Glamour and glory can only be achieved through persistent belief in a goal, anticipation of any potential obstacles (including our own fears), and extensive training and practice at overcoming those obstacles. We always need to be prepared and alert; recklessness or heedlessness can lead to catastrophe.
• Listening to our inner voice about what is important is vital to our well-being and success as individuals, families, corporations and as a society... and conversely, negative judgment about the relative worth of how other people respond to their inner voice is detrimental to all of those groups. We need to follow our own call and respect that of others.
• Performance is an attention-seeking act, but it is built on the premise of sharing a greater truth from an unusual perspective. Although we may appreciate the performer, it is the idea that must take center stage.