Study Hall » Security

Strategies For Dealing Successfully With Uncertainty

Hutt Bush — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:00:23 +0000

Certainty, like security, is a relative concept as there are few, if any, certainties in life except death and taxes. Change is the only real certainty, so uncertainty necessarily involves resistance to change.

Learning how to engage the unknown with grace rather than with trepidation is a highly valuable exercise. One of the historic barriers to dancing well with uncertainty has been our attachment to the belief that there is security.

One can be secure – for the moment – as compared to someone else. However, life’s shifts can occur so quickly that there is no such thing as complete security.

Are you dealing with a high level of uncertainty now? What are your strategies for moving through it? Have your approaches toward uncertainty changed over the course of your life?

The Costs Of Risk Avoidance

Hutt Bush — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:00:16 +0000

Among the best-known quotes about risk is this observation by author, Anais Nin: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more powerful than the risk it took to blossom.”

We humans have spent so much time protecting our assumptions of safety that we have often lost sight of the possibility of phenomenal fulfillment if we take the risks of going for our personal and professional dreams.

Nin is saying that there is often a greater harm in seeking safety than in taking the risk to experience life fully.

What is your history in adventuring in the human condition? What kinds of risk have you avoided? What are the costs of your avoidance? How have you seen risk avoidance behavior in your life and the lives of those around you?

Security Is A Paradox and An Oxymoron

Hutt Bush — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:00:09 +0000

With apologies to General Douglas Macarthur, his words about security may be just a tad strident. He said, “There is no security on this earth – only opportunity.” Apparently, another “security purist” who, to be sure, is technically correct in the absolutist construct of black-and-white thinking on our topic of the week.

Yet, we all know that life is a paradox. As Louis Adamic (a non-General whom I had never heard of) said, “Living is like licking honey off a thorn.” So it is with security: we can have health, wealth and wisdom . . . and, in the having of them, we can FEEL secure. Yet, since nothing endures, that feeling of security is fleeting . . . even if it last for decades.

Security may uniquely be both a one-word oxymoron as well as a one-word paradox . . . in any case, tough to reconcile with the realities of everyday life. Most likely, a solid way of dealing with any form of perfectionism – as absolute security is – is to use it to strive toward, but to resist being seduced by the promise of its NEVER CHANGING.

Dig deep and sense how you really FEEL about security. Not how you THINK about it, but how, deep in your gut you feel. Maybe confused, wistful, curious and perhaps even angry?

Perhaps the best security is the ability to appreciate the human experience in all its contradictions and up’s and down’s. How do you deal with your desire for security? Have you ever felt driven to make choices based on your perceived need for any kind of security?

How Do You Define Financial Security?

Hutt Bush — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:00:21 +0000

Perhaps, for purposes of this discussion, we can accept that absolute security does not exist . . . in order to allow a practical conversation about relative security. A very simplistic way to define SECURITY is FREEDOM FROM CONCERN OR WORRY.

Let’s take on financial security first. Do you consider yourself financially secure? Why or why not? Without violating any confidence about your personal financial situation, can you share with the group how you define financial security?

Again, ABSOLUTE SECURITY would mean that you had enough money for the rest of your life (unknown duration) and it was always going to be safe and liquid and available to you . . . in an economic climate that did not erode its purchasing power through either inflation or deflation . . . and on and on.

The point being . . . that we have to come to terms with relative financial security to achieve a certain comfort level. A certain amount of cash to last for a period of time that you decide is “sufficiently secure,” a livelihood, macro-economic conditions that allow you to maintain or expand your security.

It’s always interesting to challenge assumptions. In this time of an ailing economy, it’s useful to examine what we require to feel secure. What is it for you? How much are you concerned about financial security?

Your Individual Relationship to Security

Hutt Bush — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:00:08 +0000

Our minds are reeling and our heads spinning over the state of our economy. We hear pundits talking about terrifying things from deflation to the end of capitalism. All the while, each of us is dealing with our own individual relationship to security.

Not “security” in the policing sense of the word, but “security” as safety . . . and even as a feeling of being protected against change and / or from loss.

Shakespeare said, “Security is the chief enemy of mortals.”

How so? It’s easy to say there’s no real security because change can happen in an instant. Yet, security, like everything else, exists in degrees. For example, someone with assets certainly has more *financial* security than a person who is destitute.

Perhaps the quest for ABSOLUTE SECURITY is what Shakespeare is talking about . . . the natural human desire to arrange things just so and to keep them that way.

What is your relationship to security? Financial, relational, health, safety, job?

How secure are you in your ability to handle whatever comes up in life? How can you feel more secure in the face of rapidly-changing times?