Every now and then I come cross a post on Facebook along the lines of "25 things I wish I had done when I was 25". I read them, they make sense, and I move on. I also glance at (and yes, sometimes judge) the overly motivational quotes and hysterical announcements of life-altering moments. I am constantly amazed by how self-aware people have become and how ignorant we are. We have progressed and we regress. Especially right now.
I optimistically believe I have an ability to learn from life's lessons and my choices. For example, I've written before that I don't regret my father's death and I don't. Obviously I wonder what my life would be like had he lived but at the same time I understand the impact of that horrible moment and the way it shaped my future. I also believe it was something selected (by me or otherwise) even prior to this life. When Keith had his stroke I changed things up, when my sister died I swerved to avoid the brick wall and took a different direction. I always did what my mother couldn't/wouldn't; I picked myself up and moved on (not always in a forward direction but rarely with any regret).
A lot of this approach is due to the wisdom and guidance of a mentor/guru/life-coach (there are many words for this person most of which she would reject; she would remind me that she is simply moi_being_a_therapist) that has operated in the background and the foreground of my life for almost 20 years, if not more, but certainly not less. Together we have explored many aspects of who and what I am in the context of Wicca, Buddhism, Taoism, Egyptology, using crystals and Tarot, the Enneagram and the Archetypes, through Grace and Grit, most torturously (I know that's not a word) through Boomeritis, while eating garlic chicken and coconut cake and more recently in Strategy and Authority. Who I am, how I react to life, people and events and what I think is in enormous part due to the work we have done and continue to do together. If you want to know her, ask me how.
Our lives are mostly governed by what we do for work. We spend so much of our time working and earning that salary to get from one month to the next. For the longest time I was grateful to be one of the few that truly loved what I did. But somewhere along the way I lost that. I worked harder not always smarter, and regardless I always gave my all even when I threatened not to. I got angry, I got worked up and I sadly realize now that for the better part of 10+ years I moaned incessantly. I could share the reasons why some of this happened but it's not really that important though I will say that a large part had to do with my boss and the reflection of him in me and me in him. It is here that I will acknowledge that Carolyn Glashagen was and remains to this day the most supportive, collaborative, thoughtful and effective leader that I have ever encountered. I did not say thank you then; I should have said it every day. She, among others, taught me to be the work-person-manager-leader that I strive to be every day.
A Facebook memory popped up recently. It was during a time when I vented publicly and cryptically as so many of us do. It was about an incident about ten or so years ago when I was given a document to review that had been so badly written that I could not bring myself to even respond to it. I sighed and started to re-write and clean it up and finished it 36 hours later without any sleep. By then I was angry and tired and I probably brought it up a hundred times in the subsequent years. Guess what? It made absolutely no difference to who and where I am today. No. Body. Cares.
It was 2 years ago that I decided to change again, that's what Keith and I do, we do it often and we do it well. I went from working from home for over 10 years back to an office environment and I have never been happier. Work stays at work. There is always another day. I am 100% replaceable, disposable, expendable, dispensable and I love it. I went from toxic crazy to non-toxic crazy but I don't get worked up about anything anymore. I do my job. I do it extremely well because I put in the effort. Then I go home and I walk my dogs and eat dinner with Keith and play with my friends and watch TV and read books and do all the things I want to do with the money that I work hard for.
I do it this way because no-one will ever write on my tombstone that I stayed up for 36 hours to re-write a document about which No. Body. Cares.
In a meeting recently, after one person slammed her fist down on the conference room table and stormed out, and another was escorted to Starbucks downstairs (probably to be given some Green tea), a colleague pointed at me and said "look at him, no matter what he's always smiling".
It is not easy. We are surrounded by so much information and change, progression and regression. Right now people are upset at the Abortion law changes in the US, at the Trump government, at Trudeau, at the Conservative swing the pendulum is making in Toronto and Canada in general. Sometimes I get why people go off the grid but the vast majority of us have no choice but to keep on keeping on.
I don't want to wait to be 80 to look back and tell people about the 25 things I wish I had done. Know Your Self, find a moi_being_a_therapist who can show you the way, find or be a boss who is a real leader.
Be Kind. Be Good.
That's 5. It's enough.
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