Initiative is the ability to think and act without being urged or instructed. I cultivate initiative by looking for and responding to needs without being asked. The opposite is passivity.§
Comparing the actions of one who has initiative to one who is passive§ |
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|---|---|---|
Situation§ |
Initiative§ |
Passivity§ |
On a school camping trip you observe no one is making the fire, and…§ |
set out to find wood to start the evening’s campfire.§ |
figure someone more motivated than you will do the needful.§ |
Perceiving that a procedure could be improved, you…§ |
tactfully develop an acceptable change and suggest it to the team leader.§ |
say nothing, figuring that if your help is needed, someone will come and ask for it.§ |
When a door in your house doesn’t close properly, you…§ |
call up a YouTube video showing how to fix it, then shop for the parts.§ |
use the other door, which is not that far away.§ |
Gurudeva explained: “[Try] to have a positive plan incorporating meditation daily as a lifestyle within that goal. Through this positive initiative and daily effort in meditation, awareness is centered within. We learn how to disentangle and unexternalize awareness. As soon as strong initiative is taken to change our nature toward refinement, a new inner process begins to take place.”§
“…children are mentally carried along by television stories through positive and negative states of mind. They become uncreative, passive, inactive, never learning to use their own minds.”§
ASSIGNMENT: During these two weeks, find at least three opportunities to take the initiative to improve or help matters when you otherwise might have remained passive.§
Date you began this assignment ____________________§
MY THOUGHTS ON THE BENEFITS OF INITIATIVE: 
§
