A quote from Ovid -
“Que non viribus istis Munera conveiunt.”
These lines form part of the tale of Metamorphoses, of Phobe’s speech to Phaeton after the latter had requested permission to drive the sun chariot for a day.
Just yesterday I remembered what I had heard on TV. The Voice of Opposition to our *new* President’s requirement of capping executive salaries. When I heard complaints about being able to attract and hire QUOTE “the brightest, the best and most talented”.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I mumbled to my husband, “Did you hear that? When did the definition of success become divorced from results? If this is the result of the decision making of the ‘best, the brightest and most talented’ that we’ve got, then we’re in deeper *shit* then I thought.”
It was incredulous to me. Of course I’ve known about “golden parachutes” for a long time. They became increasingly popular after corporations began taking over and gobbling up other companies and corporations.
It was insurance for executives if the company or the corporation was not as successful as its competition. “Fire sale” insurance. Entrance to this level of ‘executives’ was usually like being invited into a men’s club, of sorts.
In other words, “golden parachutes” rewarded and personally insured, decision making that did not result in profitable consequences.
Educated fools are a dime a dozen. George W. Bush graduated from Yale and Harvard Business School. While his self expression in total contradiction with any intelligence belongs on “Ripley’s Believe It or Not?” show.
What’s the use in knowing a lot of facts if we don’t have any sense when it comes to putting them together?
Sense = cents.
No sense = no cents.
How obvious could it get?
Using one of the same type of tools that dug this hole we are in…, looking to one of us that’s been beguiled and indoctrinated into believing in the screwed up economics started back in the late 70’s…, the one divorced from a reality of accountability and responsibility for results, ISN’T the way to go. Trusting in those of us who have betrayed the public Trust ISN’T the way to go.
Calling all sheep!
Now’s the time to take a ewe turn…
For further reference and comments see:
http://www.hera-kles.com/Blog/2009/02/06/rewards-which-do-not-befit-thy-powers/
We have the same moaning from the bankers over here in the UK: “If we don’t pay the top men bonuses, there’ll be a brain drain!” It calls for a redefinition of ‘brain’ doesn’t it?
I think the real fear with this ‘brain drain’ is that they’ll go somewhere else and screw that up too.
By: Simon on February 9, 2009
at 3:42 pm
Rofl…maybe that brain was drained a looonnnng time ago? Or maybe its single cell became overworked?
You can just *imagine* how I was decades ago, when it came to class discussions in college courses on economics, finance and banking. I was incensed with the whole plot and said so. I was the *professors* pet because I made his classes lively. So vocal was my disagreement with ‘his’ generations’ ideas and tactics being employed. My arrows were pointed and always on the mark, like an Apache on the war path.
I would guide to *not* TRUST in any action being taken. Action is being taken as a dust screen to hide the fact that our world leaders don’t know what to do. So they take action to be seen as “taking action”. The fact is, they’re clueless.
Any time your hear the words “g-summit”, think of “gee whiz” and know the “whiz kids” are back at ~work~. Deciding on what actions to take to disguise the fact that they don’t know what action to take.
How’s the Vatican APPEAR to be doing? Untouched, huh? Wealth intact?
How about the families of the Rothchild’s and others of their “social status”? With Wealth BIG ~enough~ to ride out any storm?
I wouldn’t COUNT on it!!!!!!!
What’s not being communicated is that even the BANKERS don’t understand what is going on, nor know what to do about it.
Building realities out of the living energy of other people’s lives is what is going on. Boohoo, King is now dead and is going to stay that way. The Feudal system of living off the energy and effort of others, is OVER. If the way we have lived, has been fueled by effort and energy of others, “profiteering” off Living energy of other people’s lives, draining and using it to suit our own purposes, then it is now our Living energy that is being drained, instead. This is energy’s return. Bringing in the harvest of the seeds we have sown.
Many of us were forced to “walk the plank” in order to support the system we’ve been living with. Forced, in some way, shape, or form. “Comply or walk the plank.” Now that energy is returning, and those of us who used our power that way, are walking the planks, ourselves.
Doesn’t APPEAR to have hit “home” with those of us living in “ivory towers” does it?
Just wait.
We’ve only experienced the FIRST wave of this *new* energy of change and transformation coming in.
But of all things don’t *worry*. Our safety NET was already built. Our Internet. Keep in mind, with the Internet, we’re talking about RAM, not sheep.
And I have been a ~busy~ girl and haven’t even really started yet. I’m like a locomotive just gathering steam and beginning to leave the station. I’ve got momentums of energy that I’ve spent decades building, within me, just waiting to be expressed when the time was *right*.
You get a train going with a lot of momentum behind it, and it can make brick walls of difficulty disappear as if they never existed.
I’ve been living in “left” field all my Life. Now our whole world is in my back yard. And one of the things I would share first, is that it doesn’t matter what field we find ourselves in, just be unafraid to BE….
OUTSTANDING in it!
Our whole situation is simply motivation and inspiration for us to start believing in ourselves.
Our underlying issue is our lack of faith or lack of believing and trusting in ourselves. Having so little faith and belief in ourselves, we always ASSume that others know more then we do. So we place our TRUST in ~them~.
And were betrayed.
Cause/effect. Choice/consequence.
We chose and acted in betrayal of our own selves, by choosing not to believe in ourselves, to not have any Faith. We could have Faith in others, but NOT ourselves.
And we ended up reaping exactly what we sowed: betrayal of trust.
After being adequately *burned*, now we have sufficient motivation to believe in ourselves more.
Really, I don’t care how much we lack faith in our abilities to succeed, how ~dumb~ we think ourselves to be, every single one of us *knows*…
how to fail. We could have done as good as those we trusted to know more! Maybe even not have taken so long to do it? Saved ourselves a lot of time and trouble. Alas, if we’d only had a little more faith in our ability. (ROFL.)
Hey, if we just looked at it this way, maybe?
If we’d see that we set out to fail, then we haven’t!!!!! We’re a GREAT success’!!!!
A {{Hug}} to each one of us.
Spirit has successfully ’shep’-herded us into reconsidering our ways of thinking and our choices.
For deaf and blind sheep, there are always prods of some sorts. And we can COUNT on our own Spirit to *KNOW* what prods we need, in order to get us moving.
In herding us off a cliff, we learn we can swim.
By: Sue Ann Edwards on February 10, 2009
at 12:50 pm
Should we invent new currency to represent love, compassion, future orientedness? To reward speaking of the future, where to go, what to risk – and how to do it? How to reward those that do?
Can we start doing that? Ourselves? Or would that be… continuing a failed system?
How to do it from the current system?
New rules. Because we need rules to function as a community, right?
I say: more celebrations of *real* successes – acknowledge the compassion felt, the work done, the failures faced.. maybe? Instead of/giving new meaning to/ formatted celebrations, birthdays, Christmas, Easter – that feel so stale and old(to me)?
Thank you Sue for making me remember these thoughts.
By: Tink on March 4, 2009
at 3:15 am
While I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly, I’m afraid I have to be a butthead and correct somthing. The quote deals with seeking a task beyond your ability rather than reward beyond your deserving. And it comes from Ovid, not Livy. I wish I had a better quote to replace it with, but I do get the idea.
By: Rob on July 3, 2009
at 10:36 am
Greetings Rob!
I thank you for finding my mistake, for it is Ovid and not Livy. I mistyped the reference I was using. I had been reading “The True Patriot and Related Writings” by Henry Fielding. The Patriot Papers were written in 1745 and still bear witness to what we are seeing today.
I withhold my agreement, however, on the label of “butthead”. I don’t happen to like the attitude of self judgment, especially considering you have added positively to my blog here.
You see, (smiling), I do not consider making a mistake to be something “bad”. Making mistakes comes with being “human”. And realizing a mistake is cause for celebration because it means corrections can be made. It is a matter of empowerment.
Like archery…if I miss the mark I can correct my aim.
As to its meaning…meaning is something discerned and usually individually created. In this case, you mention “task beyond ability” vs. “reward beyond deserving”.
I see the “task” as actually being the “reward”, since there was “status” attached to the attainment.
“Prove to me you love me; let me drive the sun chariot.” And the answer was “no”. The son was seeking acknowledgment of status for vanities sake but had not yet earned that status, for he was unable to successfully manage the responsibilities of the task.
Rewards come with responsibilities. What we’ve had going on has simply been a denial of Reality, where “liberty” has been confused with “license”.
“Liberty” is the freedom of choice carrying the responsibility for being accountable for all consequences. “License” is the demand for freedom of choice while living in denial of the costs and consequences of those choices.
Whenever we choose to try to live by wiping out Reality, Reality has a way of showing up and wiping out the wiper. And that’s all that’s going on now.
“Wealth” or most often “appearances of wealth” are disappearing, because they were only illusions in the first place. These “appearances” were not backed up by substance of genuine character, namely that of “worth”.
Somewhere in the late 1970’s…we divorced ourselves from any kind of value system related to genuine substance of character and we’re now living with the results.
By: Sue Ann Edwards on July 17, 2009
at 8:49 am