Simplistic Approach to a Complicated Subject.
Over time, I have had the pleasure and honor of participating in a variety of classroom settings involving young professionals looking to advance along their respective career paths. These sessions often involve a period in which the participants ask me, and/or other panelists that may be participating with me, career and life questions. These questions are often focused on obstacles to, or best choices for, optimal career growth. There are questions about life choices and how response to these choices support or interfere with the desired career growth, and so on. It is always a great experience…and a thought provoking one.
What continues to strike me as life and career questions get asked and answered, is that two things remain constant for all of us, no matter what we do or how our persona is evolving: “Life is” and “people are.” Sounds trite, right? A bit cryptic and overly simplistic, maybe? Perhaps, but for me they remain inescapable constants, things with which all of us must deal from birth to death.
If we are alive, life happens to us and around us, and only stops at death. Life is not necessarily even keeled, predictable, or fair; and often, although not always, it remains outside of our individual control. Therefore, we are forced to cope with it or perish. Life experiences are what keeps us moving forward and experiencing ourselves. It is….Life. To not cope, to rail and flail against it, is to create unresolvable angst and pain, which leads inevitably to unhappiness and even possibly to death. At the very least, our failure to cope productively makes our short time here on earth unhappy and miserable; at worst, it leads to bad choices and often a short life span.
People are all around us and make up a large part of our environments and our lives. Some people are good, others bad. Some help us grow and some scare us and hurt us. Some love us and others don’t. Some make no impact at all. Some we know as part of our lives and many, many others we don’t. People are inescapable because even if you found your own deserted part of earth with no other people in the immediate vicinity, someone somewhere is doing something to affect your environment – good or bad. And, of course, those of us in public service have made a choice to be involved with and to serve people as a chosen part of our own ethos.
So, what’s the point of all this? Many of the group questions from participants often come down to asking for advice on how to respond when this life event happens or that person creates an obstacle or opportunity. The questions and the answers constantly underscore my firm belief that we need to come to terms with both life and people and move on with our own lives. Accepting that life is a necessary state and other humans share our world allows us to focus on ourselves — to decide what kind of human being we will be and how we will contribute (or not) to the world. We make choices about things we can control; and acceptance allows us to develop the very best skills and perspectives we can to meet life head on, open our lives to the good people, and protect ourselves and loved ones from the others. We need to learn all we can about alternatives and options so we can make informed choices when life and people hand us an opportunity or throw us an obstacle; and we need to grow ourselves into the best we can can be as well.
Bottomline: Lamenting the last unexpected event life has thrown our way or wallowing in anger when people are rude, hurtful, or just plain stupid leads us nowhere. Accept the constants, prepare ourselves for the opportunities, and figure out through our own choices and actions how we live the life we want with the people we love. Leave the world, if not a better place, at least unharmed by our short time here. It is so simple…and yet so complicated.