Leadership and Philosophy

I posted yesterday New York Times bestselling author Orrin Woodward’s observations on the gap between  our intentions and our actions which creates our limiting beliefs. This morning, I reflect on the gap between life and knowledge which is growing wider and wider.  Only by asking the right questions,  can we close this gap and live the life we’ve always wanted.

The questions we ask ourselves lead to the stories we tell about ourselves. Leadership and philosophy start with simple questions about life, death, and the pursuit of happiness.

Pythagoras and other pre-socratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other modern great thinkers such as voltaire, Lao Tsu, Dewey, Santayana, Thoreau, Firmin etc … have grappled with enduring basic questions which have preoccupied humanity from the beginning.

Who am I?

Where did I come from?

What is the best way to live?

What am I here for?

What’s the best way to organize society?

¨The more people who ask this question and rigorously pursue an answer to it, the more dynamic and vibrant a society will be¨, said Mathew Kelly, a New York Times bestselling author of the Rhythm of Life.

Philosophy which Plato called  ¨that dear delight¨ includes five fields of study: logic, esthetics, ethics, politics, and metaphysics, acceding to Dr. Will Durant in the Story of Philosophy.

Logic deals with thought and research, esthetics with form and beauty, ethics with conduct, politics with social organization, and metaphysics with ultimate reality. (Will Durant)

People create ideas and attitudes which become culture and expressed as philosophy of life. We each have our own philosophy, our personal perception, and rule of life. We have our set of beliefs by which we chose to live.

You do have a personal philosophy. It affects what you eat, what you wear, the way you consume information, and the direction you lead your life.

Communities also have philosophies. These philosophies are the sum of philosophies of its members. These communities can be as small as a family or as large as a nation.

This is by the flow of questions and the conversations that these communities entertain that they can move from being victims to leaders who take into their own hands their life and their pursuit of happiness.