In last week’s essay (The Worst Gift Ever), we discussed the concepts of gifts and our ego’s investment in specialness – particularly in the giving and receiving of attack, criticism, and judgment.  We closed that essay by looking at how everything in the world, including even the worst gifts ever, could be transformed into the most precious presents.

Today, I’d like to share a brief story of one of those precious presents that I and many others were blessed to receive.  He was an author and scholar named Dr. Kenneth Wapnick, perhaps best known as the primary editor and teacher of A Course in Miracles.

When I first encountered the infamous blue book known as A Course in Miracles, I was immediately turned off by nearly everything the tome had to offer, particularly its Christian terminology, bible-like paper, and its blank verse iambic pentameter delivery.  Further, I wondered, “How could anyone really believe what this book has to say?  This seems something akin to a cult.” Continue reading →

When I was a young boy, all I wanted for Christmas was a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer.  My family did not have nearly enough money for a computer, but my selfishness paid no attention to details like that and expectantly hoped to see such a glorious machine wrapped under the tree.

There was no computer.  Instead, there were clothes.

I wasn’t happy.  I likely was a model of petulance. Continue reading →

An FBI-trained forensic artist is brought in to draw a facial sketch of a woman he has never seen.  There was no crime, but what you are about to read clearly describes a victim of assault.

The woman being drawn is behind a curtain so that the artist can’t see her.  But the artist asks questions such as “Tell me about your hair.  Tell me about your chin.  What would be your most prominent feature?” And so on.  Based on her answers, the expert artist sketches a picture.  There is just one problem.

The picture is awful. Continue reading →

A middle-aged woman shuffled slowly down the long corporate hallway pushing the trash cart she used to empty the waste baskets from each office.  As she traversed the corridor, a heated argument arose in which this woman began yelling quite loudly.  To whom, I wondered, was she yelling?  I was only about one hundred feet behind her, but I didn’t see anyone ahead.  It must have been someone in one of the offices, or perhaps someone around the corner.

As I passed each office that she had already serviced, I peeked in and saw no one.  It was very late at night as I was working “third shift” (11 pm until 8 am) so I didn’t expect to see anyone in their offices.  Nor did I expect to see anyone around the corner once I reached the bend.  And I did not.  Yet the heated quarrel continued – and I now heard both voices in the verbal spat.  Two women who clearly did not agree with one another.

A second woman?  I had worked there for some time and did not recall a second cleaning person on this shift.  Must be a visitor or a temporary assistant helping the woman.  Or so I thought.

I was not prepared for the truth I was about to experience. Continue reading →

University students in a consumer behavior class at MIT are informed on the first day that their grade will be based on three papers they need to write during the semester.  The papers need to be submitted at any time up to and including the last day of the term.

Another class is given the exact same requirements with the following addition.  By the end of the first week of class, each student needs to commit to the date that their first paper will be submitted, a date for their second paper, and a date for their third paper.  Each student can pick any date she wants for each paper, up to and including the last day of the semester.  But, once those three dates are chosen, the student cannot change the date and will be penalized for each day a submission is made after the committed date.  There is no penalty for submitting a paper early.

Finally, a third class is also told they need to submit three papers by the end of the semester, but the professor gives them an exact date that each paper must be completed by – again, with penalties for being late but no disadvantages for early submissions.

Given those three classes, which group do you think got the best grades, and which got the worst grades? Continue reading →