How Full is Your Bucket

[Anonymous]

I read this book over my holiday recently. It’s a book about positivity.

It starts by describing how enemy Korean Ward POW camps achieved a very high death rate among American POW’s by sapping their hope. They would withhold supportive letters from home, forward negative letters immediately (those involving divorce, deaths in the family, foreclosures), and would put systems in place to encourage POW’s to snitch on each other, giving rewards for being disloyal to each other. They held negative therapy sessions where POW’s were required to explain a time when they did something bad that they regretted, and also describe opportunities to do good that they never took. Conditions weren’t bad physically in the camps, but the psychological negativity demoralized prisoners and in many cases, took their health.

Many of the men curled up and died, and gave up hope. Many didn’t even phone their families when they were released. There was no community, no teamwork, no respect for rank, just negativity and despair — all as a result of systems and cultural efforts meant to promote negativity. And there was no physical punishment.

The book then describes how to fill the buckets of others, and in so doing, fill our own buckets. It suggests practical things like giving unexpected gifts, being on the look-out for the good around you, etcetera. One principle is a modification of the Golden Rule “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them, not as you would have them do unto you”. I thought that was good advice, as many women I’ve been involved in seemed to think if they did to me what they wanted done to themselves, it would trigger love; not so — be positive to people in ways that are meaningful to them.

I could read it in about two hours, and I think it belongs in my collection of timeless books meant to elevate one’s thinking and skill in making this world a better place for everyone. I’m not sure there is much new here, but it is a wonderful attitude conditioner for people struggling with negativity. I have learned to be silent rather than to share negativity with others — to fill their buckets rather than dip into them and make them depressed.

I recommend it.

[Anonymous]

One of the most powerful fictional accounts of communal support I’ve ever read was in Tom Clancy’s, “Without Remorse”. It is a pretty graphic book in multiple ways, so I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, but there is a scene where a Mormon POW has just given up after realizing how he has been tricked into sharing things with his interrogator and is saved by another Mormon POW tapping in Morse Code the words to “Come, Come, Ye Saints”.

It is an amazing scene – one I hope I never forget.

As for my bucket, I try to keep it full in lots of ways – but I have to dash right now to take my son to a doctor’s appointment, so no more for now.

[Author]

Posts