From Passive to Active

I grew up in a family that valued intelligence.

Well, it valued my father’s intelligence.

My father liked nothing better than to tell us what he knew: what he was reading about, what his childhood was like, what he’d done that day, how a certain biological function worked.

Our job was to listen. To

bask in the brilliance.

After a while, I started to hate listening to my father. Not only were his lectures boring to adolescent ears; they erased everyone else in the room. I wanted to be present. I wanted to share my own intelligence.

Which I now do. In my blog. In my book. In my podcast.

Especially in the latest episode.

Where I acknowledge how my early family training — being lectured to — became a proclivity of my own — to lecture.

To exhort.

To turn the passive into the active. To be the do-er rather than the done-to.

Listen as I try my damnedest to buck this irritating inclination. And as I share some wisdom from ancient China at the same time.