Pollsters tell us that sixty to seventy percent of Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track. This finding is not very helpful without a clear understanding of “wrong track”.

The following is a map of the human mind in terms of its tendencies to deterine what “wrong track” means.  Observation and critical common sense tell us that humans behave, think and emote irrationally, rationally and more-than-rationally. We all experience being confused, being logical and being deeply moved by ideals such as, beauty, truth and love. The three major tendencies of the mind from which we can derive the other tendencies are confusion, order and vision. The irrational tendency of confusion leads to destruction. The rational tendency of order leads to productivity. The supra-rational tendency of vision leads to making a world according to our ideals.

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The Map of Our Human Tendencies

Irrational	Rational	Supra-rational
Confusion	Order	Vision
Dependence	Control	Freedom
Rebellion	System	Change
Skepticism	Certainty	Creativity
LEAD TO:
Self-destruction	Self-profit	World-making

A tendency of the mind means an inclination to think and behave in a particular way. For example when I’m experiencing confusion I’m thinking illogically, behaving erratically and feeling anxious.  Experiencing the rational tendency of order means my thinking is logical and is accompanied by disciplined behavior and positive emotions.  To experience the tendency of vision means that I am paying attention to and reflecting on my intuited ideals to discover practical ways to realize them. 

#1 Belief: Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, claims that personality is the expression of the human mind, that is, the human spirit is the organizer of our biological and social dimensions. Human spirit means the activities of intuition by which we are immediately aware of our ideals, self-reflection by which we think about the contents of our thinking, freedom by which we choose to take an attitude toward ourselves and our world, and creativity by which we discover novel ways to actualize our ideals. If his claim supported by many western and eastern traditions is true, then we are all free to organize our biological and social dimensions according to our ideals individually and collectively through a rational process.

#2 Belief: An opposing point of view claims that the human mind is the result of biological and social forces. According to this belief the human mind is like a blackboard upon which society writes its program.  If this claim is true, then the natural and social scientists, the guardians of society gifted by chance with advanced reasoning skills, design the political, social and economic policies to sustain the planet and advance human life. Given the exploding field of nanotechnology the possibilities for advancing the physical and cognitive dimensions of human life are astounding. The politicians and the bureaucrats execute the plans through regulations.  Their aim is to save the folks from their irrational tendencies through rational collective action. 

If #2 belief is true, then, the right track is socialism.  Emile Durkheim in his book, Socialism, made the following analogy. Just as the brain is the organizer and governor of the human body, so also  the central planning of a socialist government is the organizer and governor of the socio-political body.  According to our Map of The Human Tendencies only the elite class sharing the same scientific vision would fully experience the suprarational tendencies of world-making.  Their focus would be to rationally order the socio-political dimensions of human life according to their scientic understanding of the human being.

If #1 belief is true,  the right track is a society whose legal, economic, social and political institutions are shaped by the principle that all persons are free to create their worlds according to their own vision in mutual cooperation with others. 

What practical ideas will translate the ideal of justice into the just distribution of wealth?  Right now the United States government, state governments and city municipalities distribute trillions of dollars to senior citizens, welfare recipients, educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and government employees’ pension funds.  Most of the money goes to older and needy people.  Government treasuries are going broke.  The distribution system is backwards.

Let’s assume the following: 1.We have a right that no person prevents us from living our lives in peace according to our personal values.  2. We have a responsibility to contribute to the reservoir of wealth that we also draw on to live flourishing lives.  3. We have a personal responsibility to flourish.  The foregoing principles are based on the common sense reality of   simultaneously being an individual and being social.

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To flourish as individuals we need resources from the beginning to the end of life in order to develop a healthy mind in a healthy body.  Therefore, the distribution of wealth ought to be front-loaded at the start of life rather than being back-loaded at the end of life.  Resources ought to be available to people before problems fester instead of rushing ill conceived government emergency programs to manage an impending disaster.

The following actions fit the conservative view that society flourishes when individuals live up to their personal responsibility to grow to their potential, fit the liberal view that individual well-being is connected to the well being of the whole society, and fit the religious point of view that we are our brothers’ keeper.

Action #1: All citizens and profit making organizations contribute through taxation to a general welfare fund.

Action #2:  The federal government issues to each citizen at birth three government bank accounts designated specifically for health, education and retirement.

Action #3: The federal government establishes a formula based on need and revised periodically to determine the amounts of money to be deposited in each person’s accounts.

Obviously, such a hundred eighty degree turn raises many questions such as, at what point do the contributions end, does one’s medical insurance, education and retirement depend solely on a market economy, will there still be a safety net to prevent people from going over a financial cliff, etc. etc.

The existing system in which a small number of politicians distribute trillions of dollars also raises questions such as, do politicians look out for the good of each individual, do lobbyists have undue influence over politicians, is the system unfair, corrupt, etc., etc., etc., etc. ……….

The government should do what individuals cannot do.  The masses of educated people can take care of their health, their education and their retirement.  Individuals and communities will be free, happy and flourishing when most of the money and power stay close to home.

Personal power = psychological insights x philosophical insights

During a recent trip to Greece when it was, and still is, suffering financial convulsions, I had an interesting conversation with an erudite architect that had just officially retired but continues to work. Fluent in three languages besides his own he was speaking in English about the nature of the human being. Believing in the theory of evolution he contended that the high point of evolution was reached when a scattering of human beings in recorded history produced great achievements in literature, art and science. According to him these luminaries were like shooting stars that had had little effect on raising the universal consciousness of mankind. His analysis of the current state of humans led him to the pessimistic conclusion that humanity is devolving, that is, going backwards from creative consciousness to the sensual consciousness of the animals without the protection of a finely honed instinct. Consequently, humans are becoming more dangerous to each other than animals in the wild are to each other.

Given his history and experiences in that part of the world, I could follow his line of reasoning. Professionally and financially successful, yet, his thoughts ventured beyond his own self-interest. He raised the larger questions about the nature, destiny and meaning of human existence. From his observations he saw a discouraging picture of religions fighting each other, politicians grappling for power and money behind the façade of caring for the people, and the general population in his and neighboring countries scrambling to satisfy their basic needs. Many people would agree with him that his perceptions shaped an accurate picture of the unsavory side of human nature. But, it is also accurate to say that his pessimism about the future was a result of being aware that humans were failing to live up to their creative potential. So the obvious question is, why are they not actualizing their potential?

An answer to this question that will need explaining claims that bad things happen to individuals and society when we short circuit our philosophical consciousness, that is, we turn off our intuition and critical reflection that keep us in touch with our fundamental questions and personal discoveries about the purpose of living.

Some reasonable and unreasonable assumptions about the ways that we understand ourselves

Let’s look at some of the assumptions underlying the ways that we understand ourselves. Then, let’s judge which assumptions seem reasonable and which ones seem deficient.

1. Critical common sense tells us that we are aware of ourselves and the world in my ways. We can think of the same object from many angles. As human beings we can think of ourselves as bodies and describe ourselves in physical, chemical and biological terms. We can think of ourselves in social, historical, economic, and religious terms. When we try to understand ourselves scientifically, either from the viewpoints of the natural sciences or social sciences, we have to think of ourselves as objects affected by external forces. Many people claim that only a scientific understanding of ourselves gives us a true idea of what we are. Scientists pride themselves on obtaining objective knowledge of the world by the use of the experimental method. But, objective knowledge presupposes that scientists are using the ideas of cause and effect and pure logic uncontaminated by their subjective ideas to explain the objects that they observe.

It seems unreasonable to assume that all humans are merely objects that can be fully understood by using only the scientific method. It seems reasonable to assume that there are many other valid ways in addition to science that give us a comprehensive understanding of ourselves.

2. Critical common sense also tells us that we are aware of our subjective emotions, thoughts, hopes, desires, and questions about the meaning of life. We can view all these “internal” experiences from the viewpoint of scientific consciousness as Freud did. But, in order to scientifically explain our subjective experiences, we have to have an objective cause. For Freud, biological energy, that is the same for all humans, is the ultimate objective explanation for our subjective experiences.

Instead of biological energy we could substitute social forces, economic pressures and neurological activities of the brain to explain our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. The conclusion is the same, namely, there is no subjective, unique, interior, metaphysical reality that in any way accounts for our thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

It seems unreasonable to assume that the thoughts and feelings of which we are immediately aware are merely distortions of reality that need to be corrected by scientific investigation. It seems reasonable to assume that each person consists of a unique, interior and metaphysical reality that can enrich the emotional and cognitive processes of our psychological lives.

3. Critical common sense tells us that we are multi-dimensional beings of body, psyche and spirit. Our subjective experiences reveal to us the activity of reflection, that is, the fact that we can think about our thinking; the activity of intuition, that is, the fact that we are directly aware of our unique existence and the first principles of thinking and of moral living; and, we are aware of our freedom to actualize our ideals such as, love and beauty. Philosophical consciousness is the name for this spiritual dimension, and dialogue is the heart of philosophical consciousness. In dialoguing with ourselves and others we get in touch with our ideals, and we discover the practical ways to create our lives according to our ideals.

It seems reasonable to assume that humans through intuition and critical rational reflection can discover the purpose of their lives and the means to achieve that purpose.

4. Critical common sense tells us that when we ignore and disconnect our philosophical consciousness from our other dimensions bad things happen to us. For example, the emotional pain that we experience can often be traced to our irrational beliefs that spread through all the dimensions of our lives as a result of not practicing philosophical reflection. Soon we find ourselves in a state of confusion and disorder. Reflection is our way out of our mental morass. By stepping back to identify our illogical ways of thinking and to pay attention to our ideals we will discover the path to mental order and emotional well being that comes from pursuing the realization of our ideals.

It seems reasonable to assume that humans organize their personalities and plan their lives through the exercise of their intuition and critical rational reflection.

A reasonable hypothesis about flourishing as a person

If we accept our critical common sense intuitions that we are directly in touch with our ideals of love, justice, excellence, truth, and courage to name a few; that we are aware of ourselves as physical bodies with an interior life; and, that the internal light of reason can discover cause-effect explanations for events in the physical world, then, we can construct a robust hypothesis about becoming a flourishing and powerful person. The hypothesis to be confirmed with evidence would state: to become a complete and flourishing person means to grow subjectively by rationally clarifying our intuited ideals, by understanding our physical nature through rational, scientific reflection, and by creatively making our world according to our ideals.

Obviously, this hypothesis would not pass muster to satisfy the requirements of doing a scientific experiment. But, it would be a hypothesis that people could test for themselves after learning how to do rational reflection, how to think creatively and how to use the findings of scientific research to realize human ideals.

The main idea in the above hypothesis states that to become a complete, successful person means to grow subjectively. Testing this hypothesis from a strictly scientific point of view presents a huge problem. There is no way to set up an experiment to get objective evidence that can be universally applied to each person to confirm or falsify the hypothesis. But, we can creatively use the findings of psychological experiments to fit our unique and common experiences of growing subjectively. Evidence based techniques and medications cannot be used mindlessly and mechanically to produce subjective growth. Critical common sense tells us that we make ourselves and our world through what we think, how we think and what we do.

The pragmatic method of confirming our hypothesis

The pragmatic test is the only way to validate whether paying attention to our ideals, engaging in personal reflection and creatively using scientific resources to make our worlds according to our ideals account for subject growth. The pragmatic test means that we confirm the logical expectations of our beliefs with actual consequences after we put our well thought out beliefs into practice. For example, if we believe that an essential characteristic of love is interpersonal unity of mind and heart, and if we believe that empathic listening to each other will help us approach the realization of love, then we will practice listening to the thoughts and feelings of each other to get the results that will either confirm or falsify our beliefs.

Nobody likes to feel or be treated as an object

Everyone likes to feel powerful. In moments of pain ranging from disappointment to a physical and/or emotional crisis such as, a failed romantic relationship, not getting that promotion, a falling out with one’s family, coming down with a serious illness or losing a loved one in death, we feel vulnerable. Like an object being tossed around by a hurricane we try to cling to something that will give us some sense of control over our lives. In these painful experiences filled with confusion, anxiety and anger we thrash about in our minds to discover a source of power to protect us from emotional and, sometimes, physical collapse. The thought of getting outside support to lean on in order to steady ourselves is usually our first strategic move. But in time we realize that we have to discover our own personal power, otherwise, we will feel the weakness that comes form being overly dependent on others.

History and literature tell the stories of individuals that courageously and wisely turned impending tragedy into triumph. Their lives were illustrious examples of the power of the human spirit. Their love conquered hate, their courage chased away fear, their tenacious freedom defused dependency, and the light of their wisdom dispelled the darkness of ignorance. Their autobiographies take us on their interior journey guided by the compass of their intuition directing them toward the light of their ideals and by their critical reflection discovering the prudent ways to move them toward the realization their ideals. The lives of outstanding people in all cultures and in all times such as, Gandhi, Mandela, Lincoln, and so many other known and unknown heroes are evidence of the power of the human spirit to conquer the obstacles of hate, arrogance and ignorance that get in the way of psychological and social development.

The lesson to be learned from the lives of flourishing people points to the power and practicality of philosophical reflection that nourishes our positive psychological dispositions. The vision and the hope of moving toward the realization of their ideals psychologically energized them to think creatively. Their personal philosophical reflections did not make them shrink from the world, instead, their insights motivated them to become more engaged in solving human problems. Their vision of love and justice welded their emotions and behaviors into a steel psychological backbone that inspired others.
Today, in the age of scientific and technological consciousness many people have dismissed philosophical intuition and reflection as flights of fancy. From early childhood the philosophical activities of critical rational reflection regarding the purpose of life and of discovering one’s personal values have been systematically rooted out by our educational system. Philosophical dialogue, the oxygen of subjective growth and power, has been cut off in favor of information collecting and processing, uncritical use of the scientific method and a pervasive desire fueled by an image- driven culture to look good rather than be good. But the evidence shows that there is an indispensable connection between the philosophical activity of thinking about what our intuited ideals mean to us and flourishing psychologically.

From early childhood humans are blessed with the gifts of wonder, creative imagination, curiosity, and a feeling of being connected to something more than what their senses tell them. All these are the ingredients that set off the mind’s natural activity of raising questions regarding one’s purpose in life and that spark the mind’s natural activity of rational reflection to answer one’s own questions. When children are shown how to nurture these gifts they will flourish emotionally, cognitively and socially. They will grow to become powerful and productive adults.

“We can put a man on the moon, but …” has been the opening line for a long list of complaints about human failures such as eliminating hunger, poverty, and war. The technological spin-offs from scientific research that we enjoy with hardly any scientific knowledge on our part have contributed abundantly to our physical well-being. But, there are no technological spin-offs from the social sciences that we can use mindlessly to achieve love, justice, friendship, peace, and many more human ideals. Although the social sciences have swelled the reservoir of knowledge with insights and techniques regarding the dynamics of human development, nevertheless, to flourish personally requires personal reflection to fit this advanced knowledge to our unique lives.

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Welcome to Vision Circles, a program that provides you with three broad thinking frameworks to facilitate: 1. Reflective thinking to achieve self-understanding 2. Practical thinking to realize your personal ideals and 3. An awareness of our tendencies.

The following three acronyms stand for the three frameworks: SPRITE, OSCAR, IRS.

Framework One: SPRITE

Four concentric circles represent the four elements in the process of realizing personal ideals.

Framework Two: OSCAR

OSCAR stands for the steps in the process of monitoring our thinking to discover the best practical ways to realize our ideals.

O – Observe my thoughts, emotions and/or behaviors in each circle.

S – Sort out the negative from the positive ways of responding to my concern.

C – Connect the vision of my ideals to the best practical ways of realizing them in Circle One.

A – Act according to a personally designed plan.

R – Rate the results of the action and re-evaluate the plan if necessary.

Framework Three: IRS

Our dominant tendencies affect the way that we size up and attack problems.

I – stands for the irrational tendencies of confusion, dependence, rebellion and skepticism.

R – stands for the rational tendencies of order, control, system and certainty.

S – stands for the supra (more than) rational tendencies of vision, freedom, change and creativity.

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Making our lives is an artistic process, but it is different from creating a work of art. The painter, the architect and the composer work with instruments and materials that are different from themselves. Their aim is to make something outside themselves that express their intuitions of beauty and truth. Artists can take a brake from their work. For example years can go by before some writers resume their projects. In contrast the creation of the self continues without interruption. In the project of making ourselves our minds and bodies are simultaneously the artists and the materials. If we mentally take a rest and walk away from our intuited ideals of love, justice, compassion, courage, and all their cousins, we can easily drift into the swamps of inhumanity. There is no gear in the human mechanism for park or neutral. We have tendencies that move us toward self-destruction, survival and creation.

The following is an abbreviated example of how to use the above mental frameworks to live in the creative zone. (For a complete demonstration on using these frameworks go to the homepage and under Exploring Vision Circles click on Example.)

The SPRITE framework

The four concentric circles represent the four basic elements in the process of creating ourselves. Circle One, the innermost circle, represents the self-talk about our concern. Circle II represents the productive and unproductive ways that we are using to respond to our concern. Circle III represents the ideals that we intuitively know are related to our concern. Circle IV, the outermost circle, represents the dominant tendencies that we are experiencing in relation to our concern.

Example:

(S) Circle I: What am I saying to myself?

I’m not getting along with my boss. We hardly communicate. I don’t know what it is, but the tension is building up. He needs my expertise … I don’t know …maybe I’m a threat to him.

(PR) Circle II: How am I practically responding to my concern in terms of my emotions, behaviors and thinking? I avoid him as much as possible. Sometimes I’m annoyed, Sometimes I’m angry. I expect him to behave more professionally.

(I) Circle III: What are the ideals that are important to me in this concern? The ideals of cooperation, mutual respect and communication are important to me at work.

(TE) Circle IV: What tendencies am I experiencing in this concern?

Irrational	Rational	Supra-rational
confusion dependence rebellion skepticism	order control system certainty	vision freedom change creativity

Confusion: I don’t know what to do to improve the situation.

Dependence: I’m depending on him to change.

Vision: I’m in touch with what is important to me, but there is a gap between what I value and what is happening.

The OSCAR framework

The OSCAR framework is a metacognitive activity, that is, an activity in which we think about our thinking to root our irrational thinking, negative emotions and unproductive behaviors. We want to get ourselves in a creative frame of mind to discover productive ways to realize our ideals.

O – Observe what is going on in each circle. Label the self-talk in Circle I. Label the emotions, behaviors, and thinking in Circle II. Label the ideals in Circle III. Label the tendencies in Circle IV.

S – Sort out the positive from the negative self-talk, behaviors, emotions, thinking, and tendencies in the respective circles. Identify the changes that need to be made in each circle. Eg. Change the negative behavior of avoiding to the positive behavior of engaging. Minimize tendencies of confusion and dependence and strengthen the tendencies of freedom and control.

C – Connect the ideals in Circle III to new practical ideas that will realize your ideals concretely in Circle II. In this exercise we will use creative thinking strategies such as, brain-storming, creative imagining, and analogical thinking. The aim is to strengthen our creative attitude.

A – Act by putting together a plan of action that will implement the new practical ideas.

R – Rehearse the plan and after its implementation re-evaluate the outcomes of the action.

The IRS Human Tendencies Framework

We have a tendency to think in an orderly way provided that we pay attention to the first principles of logical thinking that we know intuitively. We also have an intuitive sense of what is good in each human situation. We know that the ideals of cooperating with and respecting our colleagues are the good things to do. On the flip side of our rational and more-than-rational tendencies we also have tendencies that are irrational. When we choose not to be attentive to our best intuitions we start to develop self-defeating mental habits such as giving ourselves excuses to behave aggressively toward our colleagues. Our irrational tendencies of rebellion and skepticism, if left unchecked, shape a defensive attitude in us that begins to define us. Although we may be drifting down stream we can change course by paying attention to our rational tendencies of order and our supra-rational tendencies of vision and freedom. As the poet said, “I am the captain of my ship”. If I mentally fall asleep at the wheel, I run the risk of shipwreck.

For a description of our irrational, rational and supra-rational tendencies see pages 13 and following in the Workbook.

Human development is a story. Like all stories the chapters of our lives tell the tale of the human spirit faced with making life-changing decisions such as, a career choice, choosing a marriage partner, being true to our ideals, and constructing a belief system that will shape our attitude toward ourselves and the world. Just as the dialogues of the characters in novels contribute to the creation of great literature, so also personal and inter-personal dialogue in the stages of human development account in large measure for creating a person magnanimous in heart, mind and spirit.

Dialogue means that at least two characters are addressing a question or a problem from different points of view. Through a process of give and take they expect that their exchange of ideas will yield a creative solution to their question. Our power of self-reflection allows us to talk to ourselves as if we were two people – the person that perceives myself according to the way that I am, and the person that sees myself as the way that I could be.

The Vision Circles Program works off the hypothesis that humans participate in the same life situation of being in-between our world as it is and our world as it could be. Our perceptions, sometimes accurate and sometimes distorted, represent the world for us as it is. Intuitively, we have a sense of the ways that our world could be. Although I perceive myself as being inadequate as a parent, I have simultaneously a sense of the parent that I could be that is represented by my ideals of love, empathy and attentiveness. The tension between ’what-is’, the perception of my inadequacy, and ’what-could-be’, the awareness of my ideals, sets the scene for a dialogue about improving myself as a parent.

Dialogue or the activities of questioning and searching for practical ideas to improve ourselves begins with an intuitive awareness of our ideals. Self-reflection, which is the process of monitoring our irrational, rational and more-than-rational ways of thinking, advances our internal conversation toward a deeper and practical understanding of our ideals. When we dialogue within ourselves and with other people, we are engaged in: 1. a corrective process of weeding out our irrational tendencies, and 2. a creative process of discovering ways to realize our ideals.

It was a dull, grayish, wintry morning around 1990 when I knocked on the sixth grade classroom door to pick up Julio for a counseling session. As a staff psychologist on the school based team of the community mental health center I worked with grade school children at risk of being placed in special education. As we walked down the well-worn staircase of the seventy-year old school building in the south Bronx, I noticed the glum expression on Julio’s face. When we arrived at the office situated off a landing of the staircase, I opened the door and asked Julio to click on the light. The switch was on the outside of the room next to the door. Julio, then, took a seat on the old wooden, straight-back chair, slouched and grunted, “Ugh .. this place is ugly too.”

I replied, “I guess you’re right. But, tell me, Julio, what else is ugly?”

Immediately, he shot back, “This city! Just look at it!”

“Well,” I said to myself, “Let’s keep this conversation going.”

After sitting down in the other straight-back chair I asked, “Julio, what would you do, if you were the mayor of New York?”

Quick on the uptake he responded confidently, “I’d make it beautiful”.

“And this room?” I probed.

“Fix it up. Make it look nice.”

He was right about the room. It had been an old storage room for books with a decrepit, splintery wooden floor, flaky walls and one light bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling. It could easily have been a set for an interrogation room in an old spy movie.

We spent the rest of the session talking about beauty. Julio took the lead by first describing the ugliness of the city as he saw it. Then, we went on to explore what we would do to make the city and, also my office, beautiful.

My aim was to steer Julio’s ideas about beauty and ugliness toward his own life. His poor academic performance was not an accurate measure of his ability but rather the result of a defeatist attitude.

“So, Julio,” I inquired, “Do you think your life in school is beautiful?”

Casting his eyes toward the beat-up floor he said softly, “I think it is a little ugly”.

“So what can we do to make your life and my office more beautiful?”

It was time to roll up our sleeves and to come up with practical ideas and a plan to make Julio’s life at school beautiful.

“Julio,” I said, “I’ll make a deal with you. You help me to come up with some ideas to make this office beautiful, and I’ll help you come up with some ideas to make your school life beautiful.”

We struck a deal. Of course, the easy part was to renovate the office, which we did. Little by little Julio changed his attitude toward school-work, and shortly thereafter his performance improved.

It all began when Julio clicked on the light of beauty.

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After the forty-five minute session with Julio I reflected on the various ways that we go about changing our lives for the better. One idea led to another that finally culminated in the question of what ultimately accounts for a successful, complete and meaningful life.

As with Julio the process of wonder and creative thinking starts when we click on the light of our intuition that illuminates our seminal ideals. Whether we feel trapped in a messy, painful situation or moving along rather smoothly in our routines, we know within the depths of our spirit that our lives could always be better. Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, describes his experiences as a twelve year old in a Nazi concentration camp. He claims that when contentment blinds ordinary people to the evil around them they fail at being human. I think that we have to agree with him. When we delude ourselves into feeling content because we have satisfied our minimum needs, we become inattentive to our higher aspirations.

Attentiveness is the switch that powers our intuition. If we develop the habit of paying attention to our innate feelings of hope for a better life, our intuition will illumine our ideals to show us what is possible. After that, it is up to us to do the practical work of making our world according to our ideals.

Like Julio who saw the ugliness of my office against the background of beauty, we will see the particular ideals of love, justice, courage, patience, power, or compassion that fit our circumstances. For example, if the alcoholic pays attention to his feelings of hope to escape the bottle, he will see the ideals of courage and perseverance that will motivate him to change. Or in the case of successful business people fighting off the temptation to rest on the oars of their accomplishments, their intuition will illumine their ideals of excellence and creativity.

What does the research tell us about human development?

The great American mathematician and philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, pointed out that the findings of science in the end will accord with the critical common sense of humans.

Common sense tells us that there is a good, better and best in human development. We know from our own observations that we are simultaneously trying to satisfy our basic physical needs, to function effectively in our roles and, in all of this, to make our ideals such as, love, excellence and integrity come true. Outstanding developmental and personality psychologists such as, Erik Erickson and Gordon Allport concur that an articulated philosophy of life, that is, a personal creed inspired by our ideals is indispensable for living a complete life.

From the inception of our lives we participate in the creative process of ordering our behaviors according to our seminal ideals. Infants, the cognitive psychologists tell us, exhibit mental activities that indicate an intuitive ability to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. All this adds up to the common sense conclusion that we are creative beings well equipped from birth to make our lives the incarnations of our inherent ideals.

Just as artists harmonize colors and shapes on canvass according to their vision of beauty, so also we artfully order our thoughts, emotions and actions to shape our hearts and bodies according to our ideals. Who does not want to be a loving person, a just person, a magnanimous person, a loyal person, a truthful person, a courageous person, and on and on we could go.

Over time we are conditioned by the institutions of society to abandon our sense of wonder, curiosity and novelty in favor of the more “practical” attitudes of thinking that serve our fundamental biological and psychological needs. But, we will make an enormous blunder in our quest for a complete life, if we dismiss philosophical reflection as an impractical exercise.

Common sense tells us that we are participants in an expanding universe that is becoming more complex and beautiful. It would make little sense to believe that all this energy is being expended to create a wondrous universe but has left me to be a fleeting spectator or temporary leech consumed with satisfying only my biological and psychological needs. Intuitively, we know that living a full life means to participate freely and mindfully in the creation of life.

How do we create our lives in the light of our ideals?

The Vision Circles Program breaks down the creative process into four elements put in the form of questions.

Circle One: What is the situation that concerns me?

Eg. Why am I bored in my work?

Why is this relationship so painful?

Why am I so down on myself?

Circle Two: What is my response to my situation?

Eg. Why am I so anxious when I think about doing something to change this relationship?

Why are my actions to change this relationship so unproductive?

Why is my thinking so confused about this relationship?

Why aren’t my expectations realized?

Circle Three: What is so important to me, that is, my ideals, in this situation?

Eg. What do I want to experience in this relationship? (Love, honesty, intimacy)

What do I want to experience in my work?? (Achievement, excellence)

Circle Four: What tendencies or attitudes am I in the habit of experiencing toward my situation?

Eg. Am I usually confused and disoriented like a dodo when faced with a problem?

Am I usually angry and rebellious when faced with a difficult problem?

Am I usually logical and controlled when faced with a problem?

Am I usually in touch with my ideals when trying to solve a problem?

Am I usually free and confident in my thinking when faced with a problem?

Am I usually open to new ideas and change when faced with a problem?

The OSCAR method in the Vision Circles Program will strengthen:

• Your rational tendencies of ordering and getting control of your life
• Your supra-rational tendencies of seeing your situation in the light of your ideals and of thinking freely and creatively to discover practical ideas to realize your ideals.

The aim of the program is to change ‘what-is’, the unacceptable situation in Circle One, to ‘what-could-be’, the ideal in Circle Three, by discovering the practical and effective ideas to apply to Circle Two.

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The following are the major beliefs that form the creed of the Vision Circles Program:

1. Life is movement. We are either moving ahead or drifting aimlessly toward self-destruction.
2. Ideals are innate sources of light that give direction to our lives.
3. Our minds are not empty buckets that are filled up with experiences.
4. We are not defined by our genes and/or culture; we work with them to make our world.
5. Our minds are dynamic sources of energy with a built in compass called intuition that works from childhood on.
6. We are self-organizing beings, that is, we organize our personalities from the inside out.
7. Our minds write the program, that is, the personal creed for creating our world.
8. Life is a creative process of shaping our relationships, our careers, our families, our communities, and ourselves according to our ideals.
9. Ideals are not pictures of the way that we and the world should be; they are lights illuminating our creative minds about the way we and our world could be.
10. Becoming good at anything requires that we learn and practice fundamental behaviors; we need to sweat the small stuff to become excellent.