Forty years ago today on a warm summer day, lounging around at UCSD from where I had just graduated, along with several other engineering students, we were glued to the TV screen watching live the lunar landing of Apollo 11. The broadcaster was CBS's Walter Cronkite, my favorite TV anchor.
Cronkite died a couple of days ago. Many of the significant events of my formative years in the United States--such as the passing of MLK and RFK, Apollo 11 lunar landing, Nixon impeachment--I witnessed through his reporting lenses. In his news reporting era, Uncle Walter was rightfully called the most trusted man in America.
He got that distinction because we sensed that he maintained integrity by reporting the news simply, honestly and with neutrality. He never imposed upon his viewers his own opinions. He just told the story...that's the way it is.
We like that because we know we have enough of our own values and beliefs (some we deliberately chose for ourselves and others we probably adopted somewhat unknowingly) to deal with already. We don't need one more source of indoctrination from a TV anchor.
But how much do we really know what we value and what we believe?
Last LPG meeting, we did a number of exercises based on CTI to assess and explore that question. The result sometimes was surprising. A number of us reported that there were gaps between what we thought we were from how we really lived our lives. We didn't always live up to what we valued.
But that's the power of self-examination and inward exploration. Used properly, it gave us the insight to change our thoughts and change our lives.
The following are tools that we used to assess who and where we are.
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