"Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved." - William Jennings Bryan
This morning, as I woke up early, I reflected on my five years in Colorado. The pace of my life here has been incredibly peaceful, joyful, and full of love, thanks to the wonderful new friends I've made and those I have yet to meet. Moving here was not a matter of chance; it was a matter of choice.
Before Colorado, my life as a transplant in Memphis, Tennessee was filled with family and friends, one whom I had known since childhood - my grade school buddy and eventual college pal, a lifelong friend from the streets of Detroit who also ended up in Memphis.
As I prepared for a quiet Sunday with my granddaughters it struck me how we are all constantly searching in life and that the many times in my life that I thought it was falling apart, it was falling together. I read in one of my favorite books by Deepak Chopra, "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success," that spirit will disrupt your life even when you don't want to when it's time to move forward towards your purpose on the planet.
Life is a journey, not a destination. We've all heard that saying. And for me all these years later, I'm reminded that the process we call life is meant to drive us towards our greatest good. And that life's purpose is to be reborn over and over again.
Life is so impersonal, yet we personalize it because of our own biases. Biases we hold because we believe our way of living, and our thoughts are somehow higher than those of others. We make judgments about whether our life experiences are good or bad. Yet, if we impersonalize life, we will see that every season is simply a part of the lessons we are here to learn.
Here are four personal biases that if you would learn to let go of you could begin to see that life is constantly deconstructing and reconstructing itself. And that every experience is moving us towards greater love on this planet and closer to God.
Experience Bias - We are the stars of our own show, and we believe that our way is the only right way, assuming how we see the world constitutes the whole truth. If we take a play from nature (God, the universe), we see that nature is in constant motion, and learning from everything in the environment.
Similarity Bias - As humans, we need to create in-group or out-of-group (we see this at school or work with the in-crowd). This type of bias leads to exclusion.
Expediency Bias - As humans because we believe we are always right, we tend to act with expediency without recognizing that everything in life moves according to nature's (God, the universe) timetable.
Safety Bias - As humans, we tend to seek safety for ourselves at the expense of a group.
Yes, life is a journey filled with our personal biases that we can choose to mitigate. But we cannot mitigate our biases alone. We need each other on the journey.
Life, it's a journey on purpose. It's a journey by choice and not by chance.
I love that Chinese proverb that reminds us that, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Take a single step today to begin to mitigate your biases.
Life is a journey of a thousand steps by choice leading us back towards the light.
Attention Bias
What is attention bias? Attention bias is our tendency to prioritize certain types of stimuli/information over others. At any given moment, an individual's senses can perceive countless stimuli in our immediate surroundings. Threat-related attention bias refers to the tendency to prioritize the processing of threats over benign or neutral stimuli. Is it no wonder we have biases related to race, ethnicity, disability, and more?
Each of us individually generates more information than ever before in human history. We take in almost 90,000 pieces of information daily, yet our brains can only filter in about 10 percent of that information. The rest, well is stored in our subconscious minds and often when we perceive a threat we act upon it.
How do you perceive the world around you and how can you understand your attention bias?
The WEBB Advisory Group Presents
The WEBB Center For Social Impact was developed and designed from more than 50 years of lived experience as a Black Woman in America.
Focusing on domestic policy specifically, our institute provides a global worldview perspective for black and brown women from the diaspora living in America today.
Using research data, lived experiences, and stories of impact, policymakers and leaders can understand the social impacts various policies have on black and brown children and women, today and tomorrow.
In response to various incidents in our country's recent history, history mustn't repeat itself. Therefore, the WEBB Center For Social Impact strives to provide voter information, information on issues for policymakers, information for community activists, and information for anyone who seeks to understand the social impacts of public policy on individuals and communities.
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Prayer for the Week
Dear God,
Spirit of Life and Love, God of grace and mercy. we thank you for this journey we call life. Those of us who have chosen to know you, know that we are headed home. We know that our journey will place us before forks in our road. These places ask us to make choices, saying yes to some things, saying no to others, grieving in what we must leave behind, rejoicing in the blessings, often unexpected, that will come our way. We ask you for patience, understanding, compassion, hope, and gratitude, so that we may welcome our collective and individual journeys with open hearts, open minds, and open hands. Amen.
"Inspiring Humans...Changing Communities."
"And So It Goes..." is a weekly blog post. We welcome the voices of all people. Are you interested in writing for us? Let us know.
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