Author: Ricardo

Of course, a sense of safety, like all things, is relative.  

I know that many of my friends and former classmates who still live in Mexico live lives that many of my friends and colleagues here in the United States would consider dangerous.  They face threats that we do not face here.  Or, better said, they face threats that we can pretty much avoid should we choose to.  I do not drive into the South Side of Chicago at night for a stroll.  Likewise, I suspect that there are not many people from the South Side of Chicago driving into golf course communities in Naperville.  This is the nature of the world we live in.  That said, such situations are entirely avoidable.  Like I said, I don’t take the drive to the South Side.  Choice…situation avoided.

There are places where such choices would be considered a luxury.  In the United States, there are those who would argue that the choice I enjoy is not a choice for everyone.  Likewise, in Mexico, there are people who have little choice, and they are stuck living their lives confronting danger as part of their daily experience.  This is how many people live across the Earth, to varying degrees.

Yet, people continue to live.  Some merely survive, yes, but many live.  They seek to live full lives, experiencing the entire range of human emotions that you and I experience.  Sometimes, they experience the worst in others.  Sometimes, they experience the best.  Everyone experiences both along a broad spectrum that ranges from the lowest lows to the highest highs.  Take as an example this post by a blogger in Lagos, Nigeria: http://josephekwu.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/my-darkest-friday/.  Joseph experienced the worst of humanity a few Fridays ago.  His life was threatened at gunpoint, his possessions stolen.  Yet…a few posts later, he writes of his journey to a wedding.  A wedding.  Don’t you see?  Ups and downs; highs and lows.  The broad spectrum of human experiences.

I frequent Joseph’s his blog because he provides a perspective in my life to which I would otherwise be deaf, blind, ignorant.  Besides, he seems to be a good man, plain and simple.  I think Joseph just seeks to live his life with dignity, to the fullest, and share it with others.  How different is that from me?  Not much.  No, not much at all.

And how different is that from you?

I know that I have to brush up on my grammar, particularly when it comes to punctuation.  Commas.  Hyphens.  Colons.  Semi-colons.  Dot, dot, dots.  Or is that dot…dot…dots…?

I could use a proofreader, too.  And an editor.  I am not a “pro,” by any stretch, but I have a love of writing.  I take it seriously.  I try my best to balance proper grammar, proper punctuation, and proper use of the English language with art, style, and “effect.”

I owe my love of English, in part, to my many years of education.  I had great teachers when I was young, and the trend continued as I progressed through to high school graduation.  In the university, I was fortunate, as well, that I had many talented teachers in various disciplines who thought enough of their students to critique their writing skills and their mastery of the English language.  I owe them all a great debt.

So, it bothers me to see atrociously written communication from professional, educated individuals.  It’s one thing to take some shortcuts when you’re texting your friends or when you’re posting on someone’s Facebook page, but it’s an entirely different matter when you receive E-mail at work from a Blackberry with no thought to punctuation, capitalization, or even sentence structure.  I mean, seriously.  Is it that hard to put a period at the end of a sentence?  Or to figure out which key on your phone is the one you need to press to get a “cap” at the front of a sentence?  When I text, I generally use one hand…one finger, really…but I ALWAYS take the extra millisecond necessary to put a period at the end of a sentence!  

And I am not the only person who thinks this is kind of nutty.  I’ve heard people commenting on this very subject at work.  To me, the biggest disaster is when it comes from people in positions of influence and leadership.  People notice these things.  They really do.  I think it telegraphs a message about how much you value the communication that you are sending.  I think it also telegraphs a message about what you think about the people to whom you are sending such messages.  Let’s face it: we all know that nobody is sending poorly-written communication up the chain to Senior VPs or corporate executives.  No way.  So, where is that line drawn then?  Who is worth a quick glance at a grammar book?  Who is worth a trip to www.m-w.com to ensure that the proper word is being used?  I don’t know where that cut off is, but I know I do my best to value the art of written communication, and, more importantly, the audience reading what I write.

I can be sloppy some times.  I can miss a grammar rule.  But there is nothing lazy about anything I write, and I sure as heck don’t take anyone reading for granted.  All it really takes to make a difference is an attempt at proper grammar.

You begin Monday with a certain belief.

What you learn on Wednesday contradicts what you believed on Monday.

On Friday, your belief has changed.

What you learned on Wednesday is probably the most important piece of the puzzle.  Perhaps it is the most important piece of any puzzle.

If your belief does not change on Friday…is that conviction?  Or is it denial?  In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, does commitment to an idea that may almost certainly be false foolishness?  Or is that faith?

If you belief does change on Friday…is that prudence?  Or is it wisdom?  At what point do we allow truth to change our minds instead of stubbornly sticking to outdated ideals?

I am not sure.  What I do know is that I would expect anyone to wake up on Friday as a slightly different person than they were upon waking up Monday morning.

On Sunday evening, I simply look forward to being further enlightened by the week ahead.

Don’t ask me how I find these things.

Actually, I would love to talk to you about how I find these things. The world is filled with beautiful and inspirational things.

“A wallah is one who performs a specific task.” They perform it over and over and over again, developing that task into an art form. Patrick Shaw has more to say about this in his post about chai wallahs: http://chaipilgrimage.com/2008/11/28/what-is-a-chai-wallah/

I think we need more chai wallahs in the world.  Actually, I think they are all over the place.  The problem is that we don’t see them…or they don’t allow themselves to be seen.  It’s a shame because they add color where color is needed in what can otherwise be a monotone landscape.

So, now I am asking myself, “And you are the wallah of…what?”

I don’t know. It would be a good idea to become the wallah of something, though. Wouldn’t it?

And you…you are the wallah of…what?

Today, I determined that the word “culture” is a four-letter word.  I spell it like this:

CLTR

Well, it’s a four-letter word in corporate-speak.  I don’t want to hear it anymore.  As an anthropology major, the use of the word “culture” at work is now officially offensive.  It is a shortcut, a catch-all.  It’s the ultimate scapegoat.  It’s a platitude.  It has lost meaning.  It’s like “synergy.”  That was once a cool word.  Now…not so much.

We need a new word.

I nominate the word “behavior” as the replacement for “culture” for use in all corporate environments.  I reclaim “culture” on behalf of all those who love the anthropological disciplines.  For everyone who struggled for a less-diluted word whilst writing an ethnography, here is CULTURE in all her former glory!  You can have her back.  Take good care of her.  Reform her.  Love her.  Respect her.  Use her responsibly.  

In corporate speak, when we say “culture” what we are really mean to say is “behaviors.”  For example, “Our corporate culture resists outside pressures” can be changed to “Our corporate behaviors resist outside pressures.”  Or “Resistance to change is part of our culture” can be changed to “Resistance to change is one of our behaviors.”  Catch phrases are great for marketing, but they often blur the lines of the truth.  That’s where we get into trouble.  Words like “culture” hide what we’re really trying to say.  That’s the danger of an analogy: you run the risk of losing the original meaning.  That’s what happened with “culture.”

You don’t need fancy punctuation for behaviors.  There’s no analogy.  A behavior is a behavior, period.  It is something that someone does.  It’s deliberate.  It’s personal.  It’s what YOU do.  It’s not some amorphous, undefined…thing.  No analogies.  Live up to what you do.  Own what you do.  Take accountability for what you do.  What you do…your behaviors.  

There, now try using behavior in a PowerPoint deck.  I DARE you.

 It’s Sunday night.  I just finished watching HGTV’s “Design Star.”  Antonio Ballatore won.  I was hoping that he would.  On the surface, the outcome of the contest really doesn’t seem to be something that will alter the course of human history, but…you know…you never know!

It doesn’t take a major event to change things on a massive scale.  It’s quite possible that the very small can alter the very large.

That is why I sit down every Sunday night and write.  Writing on Sunday opens me up to the coming week.  It begins a routine that will continue into the new week.  It honors a commitment that I will keep each night of the new week.  It is the way that I ask myself, “What am I going to do this week.?”

Routines and habits are some of the ways we organize our lives.  I used to think of words like those as “four letter words.”  I was too cool, too unpredictable to fall into those traps.  It takes time and some experience to realize that routines and habits are simply mechanisms of behavior.  They are tools we can use, once we are conscious of them.  They can be leveraged to our advantage.  They can help us modify our own behavior to help us move our lives in a direction that aligns more closely with our core values.  There are others.

For me, something simple like writing on a Sunday night helps create a sense of momentum that moves me into the new week.  I’ve pretty much mastered the art of preparing for the coming week.  Now, I just to start answering that question I posed earlier: “What am I going to do this week?”  

Time to move from day-to-day into something just a little bit bigger.

One step at a time.

I think we should all ask ourselves the quintessential working-stiff’s question: am I successful in my work?

How on EARTH do you answer that question?

You sure as heck aren’t going to find your answer in your boss’ evaluation.  Yearly evaluations…I don’t even know where to start with that concept.  I don’t know about any of you, but the only “real” year is the 360-something days it takes the Earth to revolve around the Sun.  Even that year is flaky.  The idea that what I do at work somehow begins and ends on a date on a calendar…wow.  Who was the first guy to think THAT one up?  Thanks, dude.  Whoever you were.

You aren’t going to find it in a metric.  You aren’t going to find it in a stat.  You aren’t going to find it in any mathematical equation or objective measurement.  Existence and reality are not objective, so why should a concept as esoteric as being “good” at something be objective?  It’s subjective.  By definition, anything that is subjective is completely dependent on the interpretation of the observer, the reporter, and the audience.  Sometimes, they are all the same person.  That makes evaluation a little less complicated.  But even that is screwy.  Think about how hard we are on ourselves.  Think about how irrational we are when we evaluate our own work.  No critic is as harsh as the one in the mirror, no?

If we are to measure our worth in terms of the amount of revenue we generate…well, let’s just say that we don’t have to look to far to see how crappy a criteria THAT is.

So, how do we determine how successful we are at our work?  I can offer only one approach: measurement against goals.  And I’m not talking about somebody else’s goals.  You know the saying: liars always figure and figures always lie.  By all means, meet the objectives your employer sets before you.  That’s a good way to keep your job.  Well, at least it helps.  But, in addition to those goals, set your OWN goals.  Set goals that are personal, that mean something to you.  There are many tools out there that can help you figure out how to set and track goals.  Marcus Buckingham’s books come to mind; “Now, Discover Your Strengths” and “Go Put Your Strengths to Work” are just two.  There’s also www.bestyearyet.com.  The first round is free, but you have to pay for the rest of the package.  The free part is good, though, because it gets to the root of where I am going with this: figure out what makes you tick.

If you can figure out what makes you tick…what motivates you to do what you do…then you are on to something.  You’ll be headed down the path to personal empowerment and freedom if you can dig deep and find the source of your joy.  I know…it sounds cheesy.  It is cheesy.  But it is also true.  You may find your answer quickly; you may spend the rest of your life looking for your answer.  Regardless, taking that first step changes everything.  I promise.  Oh, the process of self-discovery can be painful.  It can be ugly.  It can be…discouraging, to say the least.  But when you begin to align what puts food on your table with what puts joy in your heart (even a hint of it), you are on the path to living a much more fulfilling, much more peaceful life.  

And every last person on this planet, on some level, wants to live a peaceful life.  All of us who can pursue a peaceful life owe it to all of those who believe that they cannot live in peace to find that path for ourselves.  Find your path, share your joy, and inspire at least one other person to find their own true path to joy and peace.

That is how I measure success in my work.

 I stayed home the day it happened.  My wife hurt her back the night before.  She needed me to stay home and take care of our newborn son.  He was just a few months old.  I saw the story of a “commuter plane” that apparently had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.  Nobody was sure what it was, what had happened.  There was just that plume of smoke.  A helicopter was flying around the tower, focusing on the smoke.  The feed was live.  I can’t recall the channel that I was watching, but I remember clearly standing there, attentively watching the television.  I am, after all, a New Yorker.  

I held my son in my arms; he’d woken up for a feeding.  I normally turned the TV on when I fed him.  I kept the volume low, of course, but I watched some times to keep myself occupied.  He often fell asleep in my arms, which is what he had done that morning.  He slept peacefully and quietly in my arms.  The tower with the plume of smoke was in the foreground, and the helicopter slowly panned around the building.  The second tower was behind the first, slightly to the right.  Then, out of nowhere, that second plane came, low and fast…

What have we learned in eight years?  I am not sure.  There is a video for a song called “War is My Destiny” on YouTube (http://tinyurl.com/mo4rk4).  It is a violent, vicious, brutal video.  But the story sums up what I believe we need to know.  The essence is this: revenge against acts of violence will breed the need for further revenge and more acts of violence.  It is a cycle, an ancient cycle that repeats itself throughout human history.  It pervades the history of the Middle East.  There are examples of it in the Bible.  It fed the war machine that consumed the Greek city states, Sparta, and Persia.  It is chronicled in myths and legends from around the globe.  It is a cycle that, by now, we should be able to see clearly.  Yet, as a species, we seem to ignore it…at least some do.  And it is those few who keep the cycle going.

There is no room for revenge or hatred or blood-lust in my heart.  I only have room for compassion, love, and a strong desire for peace.  I am sure that I am not alone in this.  There are many people on this planet, and many more of them would see this cycle end than see it continue.  Perhaps we will find our voice some day.  

I can only hope that my son never experiences a 9/11 like the one I did…like the one we all did.

In order to be angry, you have to be bound to a particular position or opinion that is in jeopardy.  Anger is often a response to a threat to our essential need to be right.  It isn’t anger that takes people over.  It is the need to be correct, to be redeemed, to be superior that consumes us in those moments when we succumb to this darkest of emotions.  Anger is just a symptom of something else that is eating away at our souls.

To stay angry, you have to be committed to your position.  You have to be obsessed with your correctness.  You have to be dedicated to emerging victorious over the opinions and views of others.  But the perceived wrongs upon which we become fixated can be buried deep if left unresolved.  The anger may subside.  We may superficially appear to have gotten past the momentary flare-up.  The reality, though, is that negative emotions buried under the surface will slowly erode the foundation of who we are.  Like a fungus or a plague, they will envelop and engulf us, rotting us from within.  Then, with little provocation and with seeming randomness, the unresolved issues come percolating to the top, and we reveal the extent to which the hidden injuries have affected us by displaying anger.  

My unsolicited advice to you is to embrace your emotions when they hit you.  Feel the anger of the moment.  Embrace it.  Allow it to reveal itself fully.  Then, consider the “why” behind your anger.  Consider what it would mean to your essential, spiritual self if you simply accepted the wrong against you as a manifestation of someone else’s hurt.  The vast majority of the time, the things others do to make us angry are much more about that other person than about us.  Understand that it is THEIR pain to deal with and that the wrong is their attempt to transfer that pain, to suck you into their misery.  Don’t allow yourself to be a victim of someone else’s injured, angry ego.

Someone gave me the following advice:
  
Focus on the injury
Send it your purest, most sincere love
Tell it that you are sorry
Ask it for forgiveness
Thank it for the lessons that it taught you

Then, release it.

Love is more powerful than hate.  Compassion is more powerful than anger.  Love and compassion directed at the self are the highest sources of healing.  

As with all healing, it begins with our attitude towards ourselves.