The Good News About Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith

Next week Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light will be published. The book consists primarily of Mother Teresa’s letters over a period of 66 years in which she frequently confesses doubts about her faith. Consider this passage in which she even questions the existence of God:

So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them—because of the blasphemy—If there be God—please forgive me—When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven—there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul.—I am told God loves me—and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?

Many passages in the book are in sharp contrast to Mother Teresa’s public image. In this book, Mother Teresa described her ever-present smile as “a cloak that covers everything.”

No doubt that many will be shocked by the revelations in this new book. This is because there is a need many human beings have to see individuals who lead extraordinary lives as having special abilities or being especially blessed. The need to see them in this light arises because many individuals seek an excuse for not living up to their own potential.

From the viewpoint of the ego, it is only those “special” individuals who are responsible for living a life that has the highest reflection of who they are. It is only these “special” beings who are responsible for developing their unique gifts. Our ego counsels that we, lesser individuals, can settle for a life that is not lived according to our highest principles and values.

What Mother Teresa’s extraordinary life teaches is that any of us can choose to ignore the thoughts of the ego and see through the illusions that the ego provides. Although she was tortured by her doubts, she chose moment-by-moment to live her life according to her highest principles and values.

In doing so, she became an example for all of humanity. Thoughts of doubt may come and go, the ego’s false counsel might even linger, but there is a place inside each of us that can still choose inspired ideas.

When we read of Mother Teresa’s torment, no longer can we say that we will choose to live an inspired life when all the circumstances fall into place for us. Few are called to follow Mother Teresa’s path in form, but we are all chosen by Love that is not of our making, to follow her path in content.

In other words, wherever we find ourselves is our place to begin to choose inspired ideas. There is a story from the Hasidic Jewish religious tradition about Rabbi Zusya who said: “In the coming world, they will not ask me: `Why were you not Moses?’ They will ask me: `Why were you not Zusya?’”

Mother Teresa was not a great woman because she had special gifts. She was a great woman because she chose to moment-by-moment to honor her gifts in spite of her doubts.

The 13^th Century Sufi poet Rumi wrote:

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study

and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

 

Mother Teresa may have woke up many mornings feeling “empty” but she “let the beauty we love be what we do” in an extraordinary way.

 

Dear Bill Gross: Leave the Taxpayer Alone and Go Write Your Own Check

In his September “Investment Outlook” column for Pimco Bonds, famed bond fund manager Bill Gross argued that the White House should bail out the millions of American homeowners who face foreclosure.

Gross breezily wrote: “Write some checks, bail ‘em out, prevent a destructive housing deflation that (Fed Chairman) Ben Bernanke is unable to do. After all ‘W’, you’re ‘the Decider,’ aren’t you?”

Bill Gross has been a thoughtful observer of markets for a very long time. It is puzzling that as keen an observer as Bill Gross can have so many fundamental misunderstandings. Perhaps I don’t understand his plan. Given that, let me pose a few questions to Bill Gross.

How exactly do you propose to determine which home buyers will get bailed out? Perhaps, only those in foreclosure? If so, how do you prevent homeowners from seeking foreclosure so that they can receive a government check?

Perhaps, Bill, (please forgive the informality; but if you can call President Bush “W”, I can certainly call you Bill) you might say bail out only those homeowners in need. But how do you measure need?

What about the family who had a perfectly fine $250,000 home but decided to trade up to a $500,000 home that they couldn’t afford. Are they in need or simply foolish? What about the family who refinanced their house to buy a new SUV and now can’t make their house payments? Are they in need too? What about the housing speculator? No, you say? Then how about the housing speculator who speculated to pay medical bills?

And what of the family who prudently saved up their money to buy a home that they could afford and refused to indulge in taking out gimmicky mortgages. They will now be in the position of bailing out those families who were imprudent. To add further injury to the prudent group, families who are today saving to buy a home will be priced out of the home market because bailouts will prevent housing prices from falling. The prudent family will then never be able to buy a house.

But why stop at bailing out homeowners. There are millions of Americans who have too much credit card debt. Higher interest rates may push them into bankruptcy and they will no longer be able to shop. Haven’t analysts told us that consumer spending is an important tool to stimulate the economy? Perhaps frugal Americans should bail them out too.

Maybe we should put a floor price on stocks? When stock prices go down, just “write some checks” for investors too.

Bill, your income and wealth is far greater than most American can imagine. Forbes tells me that in 2006, you were the 322nd richest person in America, with a net worth of $1.2 billion. If you truly believe in helping homeowners, why not start a charitable fund to help? You could write out a sizable check to seed it. Your charitable fund could then determine who is truly needy.

Finally, Bill, the premise that President Bush can just order a bailout is so constitutionally flawed that it is frightening that any educated person can advocate such a view. The Constitution of course gives the President no such power and you should know that.

The Constitution is built upon the rule of law, and the rule of law are has a fundamental premise that government does not play favorites. Impartial government does not tax poor citizens who do not own homes to bailout wealthier Americans.

Bill Gross, you should know better. I wonder if you are really an advocate for the homeowner or an advocate for those on Wall Street who bought subprime mortgages and found that it was a bad bet. I think it is the latter. After all, if the homeowner is bailed out, then subprime mortgages become good investments again.

Like Jim Cramer, you are wolf in sheep’s clothing. You pose as a friend of ordinary Americans and you advocate policies that hurt them.

 

The Nursing Home Dilemma

Last night I was flying home on Southwest Airlines. As so often is the case on a Southwest flight, the steward made a humorous announcement. He advised that, in the event of an emergency requiring oxygen, if you have more than one child, first place the oxygen mask on the child least likely to place you in a nursing home. As I listened, I thought of Jim B.

Jim B. was my father-in-law’s roommate during his one-month nursing home stay. Fortunately for my father-in-law, his condition improved and he was able to leave the home and join his wife in an assisted living apartment.

Although my father-in-law’s situation had a happy ending, it is an unfortunate truth that for many, a nursing home stay is a life sentence. What is also true is that many of these individuals are limited physically but have almost full mental capacity. Such is the case for Jim B.

There is little privacy for the residents of this nursing home. Their living space isn’t much more than a cubicle. There is little in the way of activities. Most lie in bed and watch television.

Some of the residents of the home are there because of strokes or heart attacks, yet the menu consists of meat at almost very meal. Vegetables and fruits are mostly canned. This is institutional food at its worse.

On the door of the room shared by my father-in-law and Jim B. was a preprinted sign with Jim B’s named filled-in. It read “Happy Birthday, Jim B”. There was nothing personalized about the message. Other than a pre-printed signature “from the staff” the poster was not signed.

To say this home is an unpleasant place is an understatement. To say that nobody would choose to end their life in this place is an understatement. To say that many families make heartbreaking choices is an understatement.

I am not critical of any choice a family may make. But I do know this: The incentives that the federal government provides has the effect of institutionalizing some of our senior and disabled citizens who could function at home and whose families would rather that they be at home.

Medicaid programs that cover individuals with low incomes or disabilities automatically pay for nursing homes. It’s up to individual states to decide how much they will pay for in-home services. According to the Wall Street Journal, few states fund the level of skilled care that many would need. This relative scarcity of funding is also true for assisted living situations.

The irony is that assisted living or home care would cost the taxpayers less than a nursing home. The Wall Street Journal reports that the state of Georgia, for example, spends about $81,000 a year for each resident in institutional care, including nursing homes. By comparison, home and community care costs about $26,000 a year.

Government funding creates perverse incentives. For this problem, I have no ready answer. I would be the last to argue for a new entitlement program. Yet clearly there is something wrong in this bias towards institutionalized care.

Although there are many who seek other choices, on balance this bias towards institutionalized care seems to grow. For example, many support a new entitlement of universal pre-school and day care for children. Many others support further expansion of government provision of health care services.

I find this bias troubling and puzzling. We all have had enough experience with the low level of services provided by unaccountable institutions and bureaucracies. In spite of our experience, somehow we believe that the new program we advocate will be done better and more efficiently. Until this societal belief changes, the programs politicians advocate will not change.

Why the Fed Can’t Restore Confidence and Who Can

I wish I had good news to write about the economy. I wish I could give you some theory that would support the widespread belief that the Fed is able to manage the economy and the stock market. I can’t.

Many naively believe that the Fed has done a good job in managing the economy. Many have little understanding that the economy is made up of the uncontrolled daily interactions among millions of consumers and firms. The economy is not under the control of the Fed, or of Congress, or of the President.

Martin Fridson provides a good metaphorical image of our economy: “A useful image of the U.S. economy account is a boulder rolling down a hill, flattening everything that stands in its path. The President, Congress and the Federal Reserve run alongside the bolder, vainly trying to nudge it this way or that—often pushing in opposing directions. For the most part, the boulder will probably determine its own course.”

Among the general public, there is little appreciation that the economy is not controllable in a meaningful way. “They” should do something about it—that is the rallying cry of many when problems arise. Exactly who “they” are varies depending upon the political view of those advocating the intervention. The belief in the omnipotent “they” is so strong that when things inevitability go wrong, the cry in the crowd is to get a new “they.”

The financial press is full of headlines such as this one in the normally free-market Wall Street Journal: “Fed’s Tricky Task: Avoid Recession Without Rewarding Excesses.” There are so many faulty premises implicit in that headline, that it is hard to know where to begin.

First, we have the implicit belief that the Fed can help manage the economy. Because a belief is widespread does not make it true. There was once a widespread belief in the curative, medicinal powers of bloodletting.

Next, we have the premise that the Fed can intervene without rewarding excesses. How could that be true? Bailouts stop the market process from punishing those who take imprudent financial risks.

The current mess is not just a product of cheap credit provided by the Fed. It is also a direct result of Wall Street’s irresponsible bundling of home loans. The theory was that by bundling the loans, the buyers of the loan bundles would not have to pay any attention to risk.

Of course since the lenders were selling off loans, they had no incentive to pay any attention to the real financial condition of the borrowers to whom they were lending. The belief was that any problems with substandard loans would even out in the wash when they were later repackaged.

As long as interest rates remained artificially low and housing prices kept steaming ahead, the problems were buried. Those who called attention to these issues were dismissed by the public and media. The media gave near monopoly space and air-time to those who proclaimed Greenspan a great “maestro” of the economic expansion and those who predicted that housing prices could go to the moon.

As a housing boom continued, economic illiteracy spread to those who should have known better. Analysts saw people cashing out their home equity in record amounts and declared it was good for the economy. They reasoned that this would further fuel consumer spending. Greenspan even encouraged the use of adjustable-rate mortgages. Many homeowners took his advice by trading in their fixed-rate mortgages for the initial lower rate that adjustable-rate mortgages provided. The personal savings rate plummeted into negative territory but the consequences of the plunge were masked by this consumer spending.

Where does this leave us? Surely the Fed that provided the fuel for reckless behavior cannot solve the problem by providing fuel for more reckless behavior. Surely big institutions that recklessly bundled substandard loans should not be given immunity from their actions while the little guy loses his home. Actions such as those don’t restore confidence; they destroy confidence.

Many individuals and institutions have been addicted to cheap credit. The Fed has played the role of the pusher. The market’s rally last Friday on news of the Fed’s interest rate cut has no more long-term significance than an addict settling into a euphoric high after his latest fix.

Anyone who has ever lived with an addicted family member has experienced the pain and heartache that goes with deciding what to do. The addict will promise over and over again that, if they are bailed out just one more time, they will go straight. They appeal to family loyalty. They seem so believable; but yet in most cases, until they are allowed to hit bottom, there is no recovery.

If they check into a treatment center, the treatment center doesn’t give them a little bit of alcohol or cocaine to help tide them over. Yes, the addict affects the whole family in terrible ways; but bailing out the addict and allowing them to continue on with their reckless and destructive ways, only postpones and escalate the consequences.

There is one way out of our current mess that few speak of. In the panic of 1907, the stock market fell 50% from its 1906 peak. Panic was spreading and J.P. Morgan organized fellow bankers to issue lines of credit and buy stocks. The panic quickly passed.

Voluntary action by the big players that helped to create the mess, allows those who created the problem to bear the consequences. It demonstrates that they have confidence in the economy and that they are willing to clean up their own house. Out of that kind of intervention, there is the potential for healthy economic growth to follow. Out of more Fed intervention, only another crisis will follow.

Awake but Asleep on the D.C. Subway

When my children were about three years old, I got a wake-up call. I realized how unaware I could be. We were dropping off a relative at the airport, at a time when you could still pull up to the curb by the baggage handlers. I noticed that my children were paying rapt attention to a show going on just a few feet above the throngs of people, but invisible to almost everybody. They had noticed that there were owls perched in the open rafters of the airline terminal.

As they have gotten older, they have not lost their acute awareness; while I, in spite of my wake-up call, still lag behind. Given that, it was with more than a little interest that I read an amazing story this morning.

This past January, in an experiment documented by the Washington Post, one of the great violinists of our time, Joshua Bell, played on a Stradivarius violin worth $3.5 million, at the entrance of L’Enfant Plaza subway stop in Washington, D.C. Bell showed up to play in jeans, tee shirts, and a baseball cap.

Among the music Bell played was the “Chaconne” from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor, which is—without exaggeration—among the most sublime and moving music ever written. That piece was followed by Schubert’s achingly beautiful “Ave Maria.”

What is extraordinary about this story is that of the 1097 people who walked by during his 43 minute performance, only seven stopped. It was a full six minutes into the performance until the first person did. If you watch the video of his performance you can see that most seemed not to notice he was there.

Live life to the fullest! Wake up and smell the roses! Our culture is full of clichés about being more alive and present. Yet most of us remain unaware, living proof that exhortations rarely change behavior.

What then would change our behavior? What would make us more present? All that is required is for us to become aware of what is getting in our way.

Consider a D.C. subway commuter. When he woke up in the morning of his encounter with Joshua Bell, he probably did not notice how quickly the mind activity of his ego absorbed his attention. He probably didn’t notice how his ego instantly checked in to its physical and psychological aliments. Back pain? Still there. Afternoon meeting to worry about? Still there. Problematical financial situation? Still there. Good! All systems go. In other words—and for all of us—the ego thrives on defining our identity by our problems.

Before getting out of bed, anxiety about the day may begin to mount. The ego mind will then go into action, scan the world, and comes up with a cause: “I know why I am anxious, I have a difficult business meeting at 3 P.M. today. Joe will be there and he always creates conflicts.”

On the D.C. subway, the commuter may begin to imagine scenarios in his head. “Joe will say this and then I will respond as follows.” His day is almost ruined and it has hardly begun. Having turned to his ego for guidance, the ego stream of thinking continues on the subway ride. “I have got to get out of D.C. I have to find another job.”

By the time the subway ride ends, the commuter is too distracted by his mind activity to even notice the extraordinary music he is about to walk by. One wonders, what quality of work could he possibly perform while in such a state of being lost in his ego?

No wonder that I meet government employees in their 30s and 40s who are already dreaming of retirement. I mention government employees because the Metro station at which Bell performed is in the heart of a myriad of non-descript Federal buildings.

Yet for any of us, the journey to be more aware and more present can begin at any time. The first step is to realize that there is another way to be and that this other way waits on our choice. Although changes in our external circumstances may be called for, the journey towards this other way rarely begins with those sorts of changes.

Instead the journey begins by noticing our ego stream of thinking and then turning from it. If you are able to notice your ego stream of thinking, there must be something present in you other than your ego. That something is the awareness and presence that you are seeking. It is that presence that is the source of joy, vitality, love, and happiness. That presence is always with us, we just have to value it.

Who is More Intelligent: Tiger Woods or Lee Iacocca?

This is just a little bit of a trick question. I have no idea who is more intelligent, but I do know who is more committed to growing their intelligence and their ability. The answer is Tiger Woods.

In her brilliant new book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Stanford professor Carol Dweck uncovers paradigms about ability and intelligence about which many of us are unaware. An understanding of these paradigms can dramatically increase our effectiveness as leaders or managers, as educators or students, or as parents, in sports or business or just about any activity that we undertake.

Dweck’s research shows that an individual holds one of two basic paradigms about intelligence. One paradigm about intelligence is what Dweck calls a fixed mindset and the other paradigm she calls a growth mindset. If your views about intelligence are of the fixed mindset, you will believe that your ability is set in stone. If you have a growth mindset, you believe that abilities can be developed and are built over time.

The two beliefs have dramatically different implications. A person with a fixed mindset will have a need to prove themselves over and over. Challenges become frightening to a person with a fixed mindset. Dweck writes that every situation is evaluated: “Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser?”

Dweck observes that people with a fixed mindset make very little effort in what they do; they believe their work should be effortless. When things do not go right, they quickly lose interest. When things go wrong, they tend to blame others.

Individuals with a growth mindset have a completely different attitude about abilities and effort. They don’t believe anybody can do anything. However, they do understand that one must devote continuous and ongoing effort to develop their abilities.

Back to Lee Iacocca and Tiger Woods. Iacocca is a classic example of a leader with a fixed mindset. For an individual with fixed mindset, everything is about how they look. Iacocca endlessly promoted himself, even claiming that the job of running Chrysler was tougher than the job of being President of the United States.

While manufacturing substandard cars, such as the K car, Iacocca spewed endless, vitriolic hatred towards the Japanese. Blaming others for problems that you have created yourself is a classic mark of a leader with a fixed mindset. Chrysler’s problems were caused not by Japanese cars, but by their own poor cars and Iacocca’s poor leadership skills, which he refused to improve. Not being willing to improve oneself is another characteristic of an individual with a fixed mindset.

Tiger Woods is of course the polar opposite. Despite arguably being the greatest golf champion of all time, he endlessly works to improve his golf game. He has been quoted as saying that even more important than being a champion is being the “best me.” In Tiger Woods’ world, there is endless room for improvement.

Dweck provides a simple diagnostic test. Read each statement and decide whether you mostly agree with it or disagree with it:

1. Your intelligence is something very basic about you that you can’t change very much.
2. You can learn new things but you really can’t change how intelligent you are.
3. No matter how much intelligence you have, your can always change it quite a bit.
4. You can always substantially change how intelligent you are.
5. You are a certain kind of person and there is not much that can be done to really change that.
6. No matter what kind of person you are, you can always change substantially.
7. You can do things differently, but the important parts of who you are can’t really be changed.
8. You can always change basic things about the kind of person you are.

A person with a fixed mindset will agree with statements 1, 2, 5, and 7, while a person with a growth mindset will agree with statements 3, 4, 6, and 8.

There is no need for specific instructions as to how to move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. By becoming aware of our own beliefs of which we were formally unaware, we automatically begin the process of change. Since this process of change is different for each of us, there can be no specific instructions.

Beliefs we hold of which we are unaware, bind us. Dweck helps to remove our chains.

Bob Nardelli Wants To Sell You a Chrysler: Just Walk on By

Given his record at Home Depot, one would have thought that Bob Nardelli would have had trouble getting hired as CEO of any major corporation. But, as we examine his record at Home Depot, it is not surprising he found a home as CEO at Chrysler. After all Chrysler has a history of poor labor relations, shoddy products, and eroding market share.

There have been many articles in the business press, speculating as to whether Nardelli will help turn around Chrysler. I can give you the short answer—no. In a competitive market you don’t succeed by screwing your employees and customers. The only way to turn around Chrysler, or for that matter any firm that has to compete in a free-market, is to improve relations with both customers and employees. Given his track record at Home Depot, Nardelli is very unlikely to complete this mission.

Home Depot, was founded by Arthur Blank and Bernard Marcus. Both believed in a decentralized corporate culture where individual stores had wide autonomy. Both founders believed in hiring high-paid, full time employees with experience as plumbers, electricians, painters, etc. The result was a fast growing chain known for customer service.

In 2000 Arthur Blank retired and was replaced by Bob Nardelli. Nardelli saw himself as an old-school authoritarian leader and set-out to replace Home Depot’s decentralized structure which he saw as a “cowboy culture.” Senior executives quit, according to the Wall Street Journal, slighted by Nardelli’s “micromanagement and disdain for some of the company’s existing practices.”

As authoritarian leaders usually do, Nardelli managed to alienate both customers and employees. To save money Nardelli replaced full-time workers experienced in the building trades with inexperienced part-time workers. Unlike the founders who were comfortable visiting stores and personally tutoring employees on customer service, Nardelli was uncomfortable interacting with front-line employees. The result of all of this was a steady increase in complaints about customer service and deterioration in market position.

Nardelli was finally fired in January, 2007. Over his tenure Home Depot’s stock value fell 9% while rival Lowe’s had risen 188%. Nardelli was given an exit package of $210 million; this was in addition to the $240 million he had been paid over his tenure.

What I find astonishing about the Home Depot case is that Nardelli was initially hired by a board that had either no knowledge of, or no respect for, the principles and beliefs that were responsible for Home Depot’s rise to prominence.

The result of Nardelli’s tenure at Home Depot was a wrecked corporate culture. Once a corporate culture is wrecked, one doesn’t get to say, “Sorry! Let’s start again.” The culture has to be rebuilt, interaction by interaction, decision by decision. This is a time consuming process and involves examining fundamental beliefs about leadership.

At Home Depot, all that Nardelli had to do was be a steward of the successful principles of the company founders. He failed at that miserably. At Chrysler his job will be far tougher.

When you buy a car, you want to buy from a company that wants to earn your long-term business by building a safe and dependable vehicle. Given what Nardelli thought was important at Home Depot, he is unlikely to be thinking about Chrysler’s consumers. And you should not be thinking about buying his cars.

Jim Cramer’s Rant Against the Well-Being of Americans

Despite a stock picking accuracy that is no better than flipping a coin, Jim Cramer’s Mad Money show on CNBC has many fans. Last Friday Cramer made headlines with his screaming rant that the Fed needs to immediately cut interest rates.

My first post on this blog was about Jim Cramer. Because his demagoguery and ideas threaten the economic well-being of most Americans, it is time to revisit them.

Cramer poses as a friend of little investors. He promises over and over that he just wants to make them money. Cramer is hardly their friend; instead he is a shill for Wall Street’s vested interests.

Cramer is an advocate of cheap money and low interest rates. Cheap money results in economic distortions, inflation, and ultimately recession or depression. For example, after the stock bubble burst in 2000, Alan Greenspan’s Fed helped to create the housing bubble by cutting interest rates multiple times. In response to soaring housing prices, families took out record numbers of exotic mortgages. Many will not be able to pay back those mortgages and they will lose their homes.

For a few years, the cheap money that Cramer advocates forced interest rates for savings to essentially zero. Markets respond to incentives. Americans responded to the incentives provided by the Fed by going on a spending spree and reducing their personal savings rate to negative territory for the first time since the depression of the 30s. As late as the 1980s, the savings rate was over 10%. It is only savings that can provide the capital investment that is needed for a growing economy.

If cheap money does not benefit little investors, what does? First and foremost, little investors benefit by a sustainable and growing economy. They benefit by interest rates that rewards savings. They benefit by low taxes. They benefit by a sound currency and low inflation rate. They benefit by housing prices that they can afford.

What doesn’t benefit little investors? Little investors do not benefit by a housing bubble that pushes prices beyond what they can afford. They do not benefit by a crumbling dollar that will eventually result in higher prices. They do not benefit by economic distortions that result in excessive salaries paid to hedge fund managers and other Wall Street insiders. They do not benefit by excessive Fed credit expansion that inevitably results in recessions or even depressions.

Why does a Fed credit expansion result in recessions or even depressions? When the Fed through its policies drives down interest rates below rates which would occur on the free market, people make purchases and investments that they would not otherwise make. Housing is the most visible distorted market; but the distortions of cheap credit reverberate throughout the capital markets in often unseen ways.

To many, like Cramer, cheap credit seems like “something for nothing.” It isn’t; the price is just paid later. It goes without saying that if Cramer’s mistaken ideas didn’t reflect the views of many, he would not be on the air. Sadly, when the cost of cheap credit comes due, many will incorrectly blame free-markets rather than the unsound policies that they advocated.

The Jim Cramers of the world want a fixed casino. When results of their poor choices come home to roost, they want to be bailed out; first by cheap money and then, if necessary, by outright cash infusions from the Fed.

Free-markets don’t operate well when the game is rigged. Businesses need to be able to succeed or fail based not their ability to serve the consumer and not upon their ability to have the taxpayer bail them out. Wall Street should be no exception. Don’t let Jim Cramer convince you that his interest is your interest. It isn’t.

My conclusion to my blog post that I wrote in March still stands:

Pundits who speaks in 30 second sound bites, like Cramer, usually understand very little. Their believers want a quick fix. “Why doesn’t someone do something about it” is their motto.

It is principle of life that a reactive fix that comes from a lack of understanding will almost always make the problem worse.

Memo to Hillary: Neither an Actor nor a Reactor Be

John Peavoy was a high school friend of Hillary Clinton. After they went off to college they exchanged dozens of letters. These letters were saved by John and The New York Times last Sunday reported on the contents of some of them.

The letters are really not much out of the ordinary, but one thing did catch my eye. Hillary asked John in a disdainful manner: “Are you satisfied with the part you have cast yourself in?” She goes on: “It seems that you have decided to become a reactor rather than actor — everything around will determine your life.”

Hillary’s belief that being an actor is superior to being a reactor is one that many people share. Indeed, it is a universal belief among dangerous and authoritarian leaders. Many falsely believe that being an “actor” is mark of an individualist.

We can all agree with Hillary that continually reacting to life is a tedious place to be. Eckhart Tolle humorously points out that when we live life in this manner “life becomes one damn thing after another.” When one problem is solved, another problem simply pops up to take its place.

But Hillary’s idea that one can live a life where everything around us should not help to determine our life is absurd. In her book Leadership Can Be Taught Sharon Parks reports that when she asked Harvard Business School students if they thought people were affected by their social contexts, they typically answered yes. But when asked if they were affected by their social context, they found this suggestion disturbing. They argued that they were exceptions to the rule.

The fact that so many potential leaders believed that they are exceptions to the rule is disturbing. This belief is a refection of what Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek calls “false individualism.” False individualists see themselves as some kind of super-human who should be in charge of shaping the environment around them, rather than allow the environment to help inform and guide their choices. They have an exaggerated belief in the powers of their own abilities and the power of their own mind. As a consequence they have contempt for anything they didn’t think of.

Leaders who hold such beliefs are determined to mold an organization or society to their “superior” visions. Other voices are obstacles to be overcome.

In contrast, according to Hayek, a “true individualist” has “an acute consciousness of the limitations of the individual mind.” This consciousness “induces an attitude of humility toward the impersonal and anonymous social processes by which individuals help to create things greater than they know.”

This humility is an essential quality for an effective leader to have, for as Hayek has observed, “Many of the greatest things man has achieved are not the result of consciously directed thought…but of a process in which the individual plays a part which he can never fully understand.” Hayek’s words are a bitter pill for someone who believes that they are a take-charge “actor.”

Jesus provided a powerful pointer about the dangers of being an “actor” when he instructed, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.” In other words, the lily doesn’t need to want for anything. The totality of life, which we can call Wholeness, wants the lily to grow. The lily, not seeing itself separate from Wholeness, has no other will. The lily does not need to be an actor or a reactor.

Consider George Washington as he became one of the leaders of a new republic, first in the Revolutionary War and then later as president. He had to shed his former identity as an “actor” concerned about his career, his finances, and his land-holdings. During his time in public service, he sacrificed much of his wealth and health.

George Washington had no separate will other than to be of service to the American Revolution. More than anything else, George Washington served others in the pursuit of a common vision.

Because he had no separate will, Washington became a great general and statesman. He was not a mere politician. A politician is driven by her or his personal will, separate from the will of the Whole. The life of a politician is filled with conflict and manipulation.

There is a third way, Hillary—neither an actor nor reactor be. Trust your place in the larger scheme of things. Don’t manipulate others, don’t behave with an aura of arrogant entitlement, don’t be a narcissist who engages in endless self-promotion, and don’t demand that others gratify your needs.

A disclaimer: If you think that much of this column could have been written about many other politicians, I agree with you completely. America does not need another leader bending the country to his or her will; rather, we need leaders that are stewards of the great principles that help to found and grow this country.