Iris_chapter 7

Here a few quotes that stuck out to me:

p 163:
The goal is to spread emotions that create action and hope in the people you want to influence
- we want to motivate the kids to do something and realize that even small things can inherit a major change (see p 175)...if all people do tiny things all over the place they change the face of the earth...yes they are just a nut or a bolt in the huge machine but they have a purpose! We "grown-ups" tend to make children feel small and insignificant, we don't take them serious and we often label their ideas as "illusionary", "far out" or just "stupid".....

p 164:
If you are going to connect to and activate the good part of humans, you will need to stop obsessing about the "evil" part.
You want to bring out the good? Then enforce the good!
See the good things that the school kids are already doing and support them.....

p 164: ...you may discover you are the one who doesn't understand, isn't willing to change, or won't listen.
- a big problem: talking next to each other not with each other! Very often arguments are caused by misunderstandings and especially misinterpretations, sometimes it is better to reconfirm in a question how you interpret the person's points and ask the person to explain what they really mean. We have to put ourselves into the other's situation and mindset.


and just because I like it so much:
p 158:
....and the monster smiled back with enough warmth to convince even the most cynical of the villagers that this monster was now a blessing to the village rather than a curse.

...a lot of the stories that Simmons includes in the book are stories that either show somebody solving a problem in an "outside-the-box"-way or show how an event/a fact can be seen in a totally different light...it shows me that we either have to fight the patterns we are stuck in or have to use them in a certain way to improve and change.