Leadership, Paranoia, and Metanoia
Have you ever felt like the whole world was against you? Like someone gets the plum assignment that you thought was in your back pocket or the promotion that had your name on it? Maybe it’s in personal relationships and your girl goes to the other guy or your guy goes to the other girl, or your guy goes to the other guy, or gal to other gal. You know what I mean.
If we brood about it too long and feel we are being put through the ringer unfairly, we could be called paranoid. I have a better idea; let’s move from paranoia to metanoia, it’s more fun, more personally rewarding, and more socially useful.
Perhaps many of the concerns and issues staring us in the face today could use a good swift kick to the goal line from paranoia to metanoia — like the Mosque issue in Manhattan, like the border crisis with Mexico, to name just two.
Metanoia, from the Greek meta, meaning beyond or after, and noos, mind. So, metanoia is a transcendence of primitive mindedness, a transformative change of heart.
Instead of being stuck in a paranoid state of mind where there is anxiety, fear of being persecuted, one moves to observing and understanding new ways of being, new ways of conceptualizing problems, be they personal, professional, or societal.
Here are four components to help us get on the band wagon, become leaders of a new way and move from the hypnotic cultural trance of paranoid fears and concerns to a “metanoid way of life”.
1. Wholeness; work is not something we do to “make a living” on our way to living, it is a vital aspect of what we believe in and how we relate. It needs to be seen as a major way to find out who we are and what really matters.
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