Earlier today I reshared my thoughts on the lack of civility in political rhetoric and how that fosters an environment of violence – either unacted upon violent thoughts or actual violent actions. I even wrote ‘the politics of resentment’. Which leads me to Trump. Violence has always bubbled below the surface in America, but where I lay a large burden of the blame on Trump is for using it as a tool of “America Greatness”, i.e., the violence is done by patriots passionate about their great America. It really was not that long ago that in 2015 and 2016 the Trump cult was being shaped with violence.

It seemed like just another day and another violent Trump rally. The incidents kept piling up.

Chicago protest fights. A Black Lives Matters protester was sucker-punched by a white bystander at a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. A young black woman was surrounded and shoved aggressively by a number of individuals at a rally in Louisville, Kentucky. A black protester was tackled, then punched and kicked by a group of men as he curled up on the ground in Birmingham, Alabama. Immigration activists were shoved and stripped of their signs by a crowd in Richmond, Virginia. A Latino protester was knocked down and kicked by a Trump supporter in Miami.

At that time I said this version of America is not the America I know, the America I want nor is it America anywhere near great. While I remain steadfast on the latter two, on the first I was wrong. I now know the Trump America and it is violent.

It makes me angry.

It disturbs me.

Just to remind everyone, one of the most disturbing moments, one which truly made me angry, was angry as I watched a protest in Chicago devolve into what could only look like a riot to the entire world.

Another reminder. A Republican, at that time, said: “Tonight the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit, and it was ugly.”

I am angry because Mr. Trump knew what he is doing. He was playing with fire. Playing it as close to the fire as he could without getting burned <or burning down the house> because in his own pea like mind he has decided that this warped version of passion will energize change and ‘winning.’

Just as he has shown a complete disdain for a ‘good win’ versus a ‘bad win’ he also shows no signs that he understands the difference between ‘bad passion’ and ‘good passion.’

That is the sign of an incompetent ignorant lazy leader.

I am angry.

I am not angry at America or its people or even most of Trump’s followers; I am angry at a person who wants to be the emperor who has no clothes. He offers only platitudes of ‘deals & wins’ as solutions to any issue he is asked about and, worse, simplistically twists the “us versus them” narrative into “we good people & they bad/evil people” platitudes.

He skates on the slippery superficial surface of emotion and an enhanced feeling of irrelevance <or being marginalized> from a minority of the populace who has now found a voice.

I remain angry even to this day.

And I get even angrier because Trump, to this day, assumes no, none, nada, whatever version of “zero” you want to apply here … responsibility for anything.

It is never his problem. It is never his issue. It is never anything but ‘the bad people’ <media, people who do not agree, Muslims/Islam, Mexicans, immigrants, stupid elite, etc.>. It is never him.

This despite the fact he is the common denominator.

And this also means, to Mr. Tump, he is never responsible for his words.

We are all responsible for the words we say. Everyone.

That said.

It most likely took me far too long to understand this, but while freedom of speech is an equal freedom for all & everyone, the responsibility tied to that freedom is not equal. Responsibility increases upwards. The larger the forum, the more impact as a leader I have, the larger the actual managerial/actionable responsibility the leader has AND the larger the responsibility to the speech portion of my freedom I have.

Trump acts, and has always acted, like he has no more responsibility with regard to what he says than the guy sitting at the end of the bar after a 10 hour day drinking his 5th draft beer with his buddies bitching about the world.

======== Trump supporter ==========

A leader has a responsibility to listen to his/her people but any good leader knows you don’t incite latent negative emotion within an organization … you show you listen, unite and give specifics on how the organization will progress from that point on.

Lastly.

I am angry because I have run across these faux business leaders in business and they are the worst of the worst. They are hollow of anything. And blanket their hollowness with superficiality or faux emotion. And, most importantly, they make nothing great.

Trump is particularly skilled at manipulating his version of the public to his own ends. And, in that, he doesn’t even recognize his divisiveness <which is frightening for someone who was leader of the free world>. I believe he doesn’t recognize the divisiveness because he lives in an alternative universe in which everyone else is wrong and the problem and protestors never have a valid reason and anyone not in ‘his crowd’ must be unpatriotic.

Mr. Trump, assuming he actually desired to be a president, never understood all citizens are his crowd. You either decide to try and unite by listening and convincing them of your path to ‘greatness’ or I imagine you just let them rot somewhere as you, and your followers, shun them. And, well, that’s what he did. And by shunning them, while fostering a violent attitude, he gave implicit permission to be violent as long as it was targeted to those he shunned.

I cannot remember in my 60something lifetime anything like this.

And, yeah, I am still angry.

And, if I am honest, a little nervous certainly unsettled and, well, maybe a little scared.

This feeling did not come easily.

And I know exactly when it happened. It was a March morning in 2016 when I discussed my anger at Trump’s lack of assuming responsibility after the Chicago rally incident and it happened as I said “I have never seen this before in my lifetime.”

Because I do know where I have seen it before. This is the divisiveness of dictators and autocrats. I hesitated to use examples from the past, but the names came very very close to crossing my lips. It was an uncomfortable feeling to be that close to comparing Trump to some of the worst of the worst leaders from past history. And what got me that close to uttering the examples is that instead of making a call for discussion and debate he insists on calling for silence and authoritarianism <absurdly under the guise of ‘freedom of speech’>. To be clear, I no longer hesitate to draw these comparisons. To be clear, as he harkens back to the ‘good ole days’ he even seems to encourages violence <under the guise of “we are so weak and need to be strong again”>.

This is bully logic.

Trump disavows violence and yet encourages it. He encourages a consistent ‘strong message’ <however you, the followers, would like to deliver that message to ‘them’> of silencing dissent, silencing debate, silencing real solutions, silencing critics and silencing competitors. And he fills their silent space with bombastic platitudes of deals & wins and divisive rhetoric.

While he’s narcissistic, self-absorbed, power hungry/crazy and driven by either greed or ‘winning by any measure” I almost think we are seeing a public case study example of the Dunning–Kruger effect.

This is a cognitive bias in which a relatively unskilled person suffers illusory superiority. This translates into mistakenly assessing their ability and believing their skills, and themselves, to be significantly better than what it actually is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately. When Trump looks in the mirror he sees only something superior to everyone else … maybe even superior to America itself.

Anyway.

I am not a huge follower of politics but it seems to me that consistent violence at the scale of 2016 was rare in American politics, but now it has almost become the norm.

And I am still angry at Mr. Trump.

Angry at his overall lack or personal responsibility. Angry at his disdain for the power of words. Angry at his lack of understanding of freedom of speech as it pertains to leadership. Angry at his lack of desire to try and convert dissenters, but rather silence or eject/reject dissenters.

Angry at his hollowness <because I want a leader who is full of a robust vision beyond deals & wins>.

And, mostly, I am angry at what he has done to America.

He never had any interest in making America great, he simply encouraged us to hate.

And hate is the foundation for violence. Ponder because this is important.

===

“You’ll have to help yourself.”

Lemony Snicket

===

“It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine.”

Mark Z. Danielewski

======

“More than anything, to me, he was dad. And what a dad. He loved us with the passion and the devotion that encompassed his life. He taught us to believe in ourselves, to stand up for ourselves, to know ourselves and to accept responsibility for ourselves.

Justin Trudeau at his father’s funeral

=============

Personal responsibility is hard. Much much harder than conceptually it sounds like it should be.

I do not have any research today to show how people who have a strong sense of personal responsibility attained that character trait <although if you google it there are gobs of people with an opinion on it>.

For everyone who had great parents who taught them, I can give you a dozen examples of people with crappy parents who have a strong sense of personal responsibility.

For every victim mentality person, I can show different contextual situations that got them into that state of mind and, just as well, the path to a strong sense of personal responsibility is numerous and rarely a straight path.

But, even without research I will suggest a couple of things:

1. Personal acceptance.

To have personal responsibility you almost have to have a strong foundation of personal acceptance.

I imagine I could suggest that if it doesn’t than you are simply ‘posing’ in an attempt to look like you are responsible <and that rarely can stand the test of time>.

Regardless. Somehow, someway people with a strong sense of personal responsibility have developed a strong sense of self. Not necessarily confidence, just self. They recognize ‘they is what they is’ and accept the flaws <and try to improve in some way> and accept their strengths <but never take them for granted>.

In their personal acceptance we, around them, see ‘solid.’ We love these people on our business teams and friend teams, as peers or as leaders, because regardless of their IQ or leadership skills or professional skills they are lighthouse people in their own right.

These people can also be baffling to the perfectionists in the world because part of ‘personal acceptance’ is understanding, if not embracing, imperfections. Ponder.

2. Lucky to be here but many others are just as deserving.

Let me suggest that people with an incredibly strong sense of personal responsibility will also most likely be the people who suggest they had a little luck along the way – lucky in life situations, lucky with mentors, lucky in opportunities – and, even though they had worked hard with integrity, they had done nothing to actually deserve the luck.

As a corollary to this thinking, they would also believe, as part of the luck aspect, that there are many others just as deserving. This attitude creates a sense of responsibility for actions, behavior and attitudes. Mistakes are owned and successes are shared.

Some people may suggest that personal responsibility and accountability is a reflection of integrity or humility.

Well.

It may be.

But I rather believe it is more a sense of understanding that successes are more often than not a reflection of just hard work, but also circumstances. And, to that point, inherently someone with a strong sense of accountability balances success with the understanding that a portion of success is luck – luck of circumstance & luck of being the one where many were just as deserving if provided the opportunity. Ponder.

Like I said in the beginning. This is not based on research and you can toss this into your ‘Bruce bullshit bin’ if you want. But I do not need research to state that personal responsibility and personal acceptance takes work. Lots of work and lots of fortitude.

It is the kind of thing you spend your entire life working hard to not only ‘be’, but to live up to the character standard you have set for yourself. A standard which you will never measure others against because, well, it is personal. You are accountable to your own standard and responsible to meet it. And everyone not only has the ability to set their own, but they also have an unequivocal right to do so without anyone else telling them “how to be accountable.”

————

“It was instead something that we would have to spend the rest of our lives to work very hard to live up to.”

Spike Lee

————-

Personal responsibility is actually one of Life’s lightest burdens if you choose to accept it. That is why I am so often surprised by how many people actually do not accept this burden.

But, in the end, personal responsibility is a personal choice. No one can convince you to do it or be that way. You have to help yourself on this one because no one else can.

====

“I suppose in the end it’s almost too easy to look back and say what you should have done, how you might have changed things.

What’s harder – what’s much, much harder – is to accept what you actually did do.”

Peter Hook

====

Well. Suffice it to say 99.9% of us have a nasty habit of going back over ground we have tread before. Again and again.

We retrace our steps as if we could not only have actually chosen a different path or stopped and smelled the roses or hurried past something a little faster, but also if we had done all those things, well, things would be different in the here & now.

We all do it. It’s kind of natural.

Why? Because it is easy <in a hard way>.

While it is hard, as in ruefully painful at times, to think about the ‘shoulds’; it is easy to see the ‘shoulds.’ And we convince ourselves in that going back and revisiting these things we will be better in the future <because we convince ourselves it will make us smarter>.

In many ways this revisiting of decisions is a version of not really accepting what we did.

That said. Here is some truth. Some real, but unfortunate, truth.

99% of these things you should have done were done with best intentions, best viewing of the situation at hand and, most likely, in the range of best decisions available.

99% of these things you should have done are most likely viewed through a lens which incorporates the contextual ripples that surrounded it at that time <which are almost impossible to see within any moment as it happens> as well as the ripples of time since that moment <which are difficult to envision within any moment>.

99% of these things you should have done only appear to be ‘should have dones’ because you assume the path from that choice & decision would have remained the same as current history.

Oh. And that last 99% is 100% wrong.

Each pebble you drop in a pond is slightly different sized, dropped ever so slightly differently and hits the pond ever so slightly in a different way … all of which sends out a different ripple effect than the original.

Suffice it to say that Time & Life is neither linear nor impervious to other actions.

Oh. The other thing to remember is that 99% of the time you do not really have to retrace your steps to know what you should have done. Whether you realize it or not, in our heads our memory does a pretty fantastic job of taking a picture of moments like that and stores them in your mental photo library.

99% of us see crossroad moments exactly as cross road moments and recognize they have the potential for should haves and store them away. We need not revisit or retrace, we know them subconsciously and reassess them should we cross another similar crossroad moment. You need not examine and tear apart and have angst over the moment viewing it thread by thread in the tapestry of the moment.

Suffice it to say 99% of everything you will need is already stored away in your pea like brain and will naturally arise 99% of the time it should.

Now. It is hard to accept all of which I have written. And maybe 99% of us will chafe at it, maybe ridicule it, possibly oppose it and, yet, will eventually, finally, find it self evident.

===========

“All truth passes through three stages.

First, it is ridiculed.

Second, it is violently opposed.

Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

Arthur Schopenhauer

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Truth, in Life and in decision and choices, is, well, truth. And just as truth is sometimes not self-evident in the moment, as with most things in Life, truth always resides as simply ‘it is so’ with the things you have done.

This is the ‘truth’ that 99% of the time is the … well … the just ‘it is so’ aspect:

You do your best.

You make the best decisions you can.

You accept what you did as neither stupid nor smart, but rather the best in that time and place.

That last, my friends, is a simple definition for ‘acceptance.’

And because of what I just said 99% of the time you should just accept what you actually did and not invest time going back over ‘should haves’ and instead invest that 99% of your time moving forward or making some progress.

Well. That last thought is hard. It is difficult.

Accepting what you have done, the bad and the good, is difficult. Accepting that you have learned that lesson in the moment and do not have to retrace steps to ‘really learn’ is difficult.

All I can really say is accepting what you have done, the bad and the good, is actually a lighter burden than carrying along a shitload of ‘should haves.’

Acceptance is a light load and makes you nimbler for the future. And if that isn’t the ultimate argument for acceptance I don’t know what is because in today’s world having some agility to adapt may be the single most survival skill anyone can have. And maybe that is my point. Accepting what you actually did do comes back to one simple phrase: “I survived.” Retracing steps can never change that fact. And I would bet 99% of us have stored away everything to do with our survival. Ponder.

Note:

I did not research this so the 99% is made up.

But I have 90% confidence that it is within the realm of factual truth — in business as well as in Life.

Remember. I am a cynical optimist.

——–

===

“Of these houses

Nothing remains

But certain

shreds of the wall.

Of so many

Who were close to me

Nothing is left

Not even that.

Of my heart

No room still stands

Where it lies

In the most tortured village.” 

Giuseppe Ungaretti

===

I love this poem.

Now. To be fair to Giuseppe, I found multiple translations of this work and this was my favorite and because he is dead I can’t ask him if I got the right one.

To me? I got the right one.

So. The poem and what I thought when I read it.

Memories are a mixture of good and bad, gains and losses. But these words are about loss, about a heart standing in a tortured village, with no room still standing. Your heart has lost all structure around it.

Well.

I have never lost to the extent of the poem’s author, however, we have all lost something in our lives or known someone who has.

And I mean lost something truly meaningful.

So meaningful that the construct for their entire existence appears destroyed. The frame of life is destroyed and you stand balanced between infinite nothingness and, well, staring into an abyss of self nothingness.

I say that because those real losses in Life, to me, are not really about pain, they are about emptiness.

A lack of … well … anything.

The loss simply can be found in some black empty hole holding neither pain, nor regret, nor joy <of course>, just emptiness. It is some space in which nothing exists. A black hole of emotions and feelings. It feels simultaneously finite and infinite.

How can this be?

Well.

The walls surrounding that which was are gone. Simply shreds remaining.

And not even walls remain of those who were, just empty space, nothing to hold any feelings inside.

Well.

Maybe it is because I believe what I just wrote that I have always struggled when people give advice that suggests you should accept and face the pain when dealing with extreme loss … or as a corollary … the infamously flippant remember the good and happiness.

Why do I struggle with that advice? Because I sense there is nothing to embrace.

There is nothing to face.

And there is often nothing to remember.

No walls remain.

No rooms are still standing.

I know this is my own opinion nor am I a doctor.

But I remember reading Simon Wiesenthal’s “Murderers among Us” <about hunting Holocaust war criminals after World War 2>. In one part I was struck when Wiesenthal stated one of the biggest struggles in bring justice to bear was that many of the concentration camp survivors did not want to testify.

Yes.

The people who you would have most likely envisioned wanting justice to be brought down like the hammer of God were the ones who were most likely to remain silent.

No walls remain.

No rooms still standing.

Their hearts standing alone in a tortured village.

That is how I finally resolved that in my own head.

We would have asked them to speak of emptiness. To explain a dark black hole of nothingness.

Anyway.

Losing something, or someone, meaningful is never easy. All I know from my own perspective is that I will imagine it is dealing with emptiness. And treat it accordingly seeking to rebuild something from which I could find some room, some meaningful room, to stand in.

For I imagine once you have done that you have begun rebuilding a home for your heart.

Until then your heart has no home, village or country.

Oh.

In one of Ungaretti’s other works he also wrote:

… my heart is the most tormented country of all …

Ponder.

===============

“We promise according to our hopes; we perform according to our fears.”

François de La Rochefoucauld

==============

In an era when we appear to be facing an increasingly uncertain and complex economic future, in this wacky business world in which technology seems to becoming the new ‘labor’ for business productivity <please note I am not suggesting technology is reducing ‘people jobs’ because it is not … simply shifting them>, the one certainty is that we have become the outcome business generation.

I say that to begin a business rant about how I believe our future resides in having every young person finding the skills to be successful <and generate results>, but also to develop their own character <and resilience to manage their generation’s version of business> AND have them reshape the current business world.

I say that because we are an increasingly outcome oriented world and focus.

In fact it may be the sole ‘go to’ focus and criteria for success. At least that is the current business environment and current business leadership focus.

How did we get to this place?

How did we create this misguided direction young people focus on <and business>?

How did we come so far down this path seemingly on misperceptions?

Let me suggest 3 things on how we got to this outcome generation business model:

–          Fear <performance according to>

–          Boomers <older people> – beliefs & attitudes

–          Boomers <older people>- perceptions

First. Fear.

Businesses are promising hope and a full business future to everyone and anyone interviewing and showing interest in walking thru their doors. But. Once in? It becomes performance based on fear. What I mean by that is business institutions , as soon as they put you in a position with some responsibilities will immediately tie you to some accountability for outcomes, therefore, creating a fear of not generating outcome & results. At least that is the inevitable leadership message.

Someone can put a positive spin on ‘we believe in business success’ or ‘results are the ultimate measure of effective skills’ or even ‘your ability to meet the outcome objectives despite such obstacles shows real character’, but, in the end it comes down to fear management.

Second. This beliefs and attitudes thing.

We current older folk grew up in a business environment in which the typical overly successful ambitious individual was always one who always seemed to desire what was just out of reach and go to almost any length to get what they thought they deserved often believing they were not only above everyone else, but also above the common rules <and in some cases … above law itself or some bent version of law>.

That was an attitude and a belief. A broad playing field of ‘do whatever it takes’ mentality.

That was a belief in results & outcome as proof of success. And it has bled into how we older folk think about how to live our lives in general. Shit. Even “the Secret” has embraced outcome <therefore we have gobs of people in the midst of life convinced the Secret to Life can be found in focusing on outcomes>.

Anyway.

Because we know this ‘secret’, i.e., this attitude/belief inevitably created a misperception among older folk that the current generation feels they deserve the same ‘outcome success’ but without the work <when the reality is they don’t want what we have>.

Well.

Not exactly.

Of course when in business you want business success. And the young are certainly willing to work for it, but they would just prefer getting it differently.

Regardless.

My generation’s <older> management style has beget its own uncomfortable outcome. A younger generation basically unhappy <or constantly chafing more so than usual in past generations> which, in my opinion, has fed into some fairly dismal employee engagement numbers.

I also believe that it’s possible to become so focused on the process of reaching our old folk business goals, our desired <or demanded> outcomes, that we not only lose sight of some of the other important things, in other words, ‘objective blindness.’

We forget that ‘outcomes’ are not the end all be all.

We forget ‘winning’ in business can come in different sizes and shapes.

Of course, making some sacrifices to achieve results is expected. There is always a price to pay to get where you want to go.

But let’s be clear. Young people are NOT taking for granted all the ‘good things’ we have going for us now, but rather they are challenging the journey we took to get the ‘good things’ and outcomes. They not only second guess our ability to balance ‘whatever it takes’, but they second guess our moral compass. And they are certainly second guessing ‘do what it takes to win’ mentality.

They also certainly second guess our obsession with time.

Why?

Maybe they have watched us older folk for so long endlessly obsessing and endlessly cycling through some constantly changing to-do list or watching us spending gobs of time simply arranging and rearranging a schedule <not doing … just planning on doing> or watching us wishing throughout the day <out loud most of the time> that ‘if there were only more time’ only to find out that at the end of the day … well … you were at the end of the day.

Frankly.

Old people are stubbornly holding on to the past attitudes and it is negatively affecting our future. Not only are we creating an outcome skewed generation, but also one driven by fear <of not generating outcomes or else> and ultimately they are becoming increasingly disengaged <they just don’t want to play our game>.

By the way, this outcome mentality the older generation has, and is implementing even now, is impacting kids even before they get to the workplace <which will inevitably bleed into work>.  Here is an example:

Five students were shadowed during a year of high school. The students attended a high school where 95% of its graduates attend college. The students in this book were forced to cheat, act different, etc. in the pursuit of high grades. The author of the study mainly addresses the “force” as coming from the inadequately structured school system, family, and in the end, America itself.

In looking for some insight from students regarding how school can be better a few of the students had some respectable suggestions such as fostering student engagement by allowing students to pursue topics that actually interested them and connected to other courses as well.

Ok. On the more positive side … we can also impact our children in good ways:

In a classic experiment, the psychologist J. Philippe Rushton gave 140 elementary- and middle-school-age children tokens for winning a game, which they could keep entirely or donate some to a child in poverty. They first watched a teacher figure play the game either selfishly or generously, and then preach to them the value of taking, giving or neither. The adult’s influence was significant: Actions spoke louder than words. When the adult behaved selfishly, children followed suit. The words didn’t make much difference — children gave fewer tokens after observing the adult’s selfish actions, regardless of whether the adult verbally advocated selfishness or generosity. When the adult acted generously, students gave the same amount whether generosity was preached or not — they donated 85 percent more than the norm in both cases. When the adult preached selfishness, even after the adult acted generously, the students still gave 49 percent more than the norm. Children learn generosity not by listening to what their role models say, but by observing what they do.

Suffice it it say this outcome mentality focus is affecting our youth’s education. Our school systems are increasingly not really places that foster learning <which has a disturbing ironic side to it> mainly because it is being built as a reflection of America’s own stressed out, materialistic, and results <test scores> culture. Schools are so worried about their outcomes, mostly because it is tied to funding, they have begin gaming student outcomes <or gaming the students so they achieve desired outcomes> and the real valuable student outcomes, like good citizens well trained for a variety of possible careers, is being ignored.

Third. This overarching perception about younger people by us older business folk.

Let’s call this attitudes towards work and work ethic. The perceived decline in work ethic is perhaps one of the major contributors of generational conflicts

In the workplace older employees complain that younger workers are uncommitted to their jobs and work only the required hours and little more.

Conversely, Boomers may be workaholics and reportedly started the trend <the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Office of Diversity, 2006> coming in on the heels of those before who have been characterized as the most hardworking generation <Jenkins, 2007>. Regardless … the prevailing stereotype is that younger workers do not work as hard as older workers do:

<note: while this specific research is slightly dated I am using it because it is the best written reflection of more recent research I have reviewed>

Whether the younger generations do not work as hard as previous ones is debatable.

A cross sectional comparison of 27 to 40 year olds versus 41 to 65 year olds in 1974 and 1999 indicated that both age groups felt that it was less important that a worker feel a sense of pride in one’s work in 1999 than in 1974. In both age groups, work values among managers declined between 1974 and 1999 (Smola & Sutton, 2002). Both age groups were also less likely in 1999 to indicate that they believed that how a person did his or her job was indicative of this individual’s worth. In 1999, both age groups were also less likely to believe that work should be an important part of life or working hard made one a better person (Smola & Sutton, 2002). Furthermore, older employees had a less idealized view of work than younger workers did.

Indeed, it was postulated that after witnessing the lack of employer loyalty toward employees, the latter consequently developed a less idealized view of work. Other sources of evidence do not support the claim that there is a decline in work ethics among younger generations.

For instance, Tang and Tzeng (1992) found that as age increased, reported work ethic decreased, indicating that younger workers reported higher work ethics than older workers.

——————-

Once again, I tend to believe most issues in today’s workplace have nothing to do with young people or any skills they may or may not have, it is more about the older folk and their attitudes and behavior and perceptions. And because of that, circling back to the beginning of this piece, we promise one thing and manage to another.

Look.

We’ve all been the givers and receivers of broken promises. In life and in business no one can say that they haven’t let someone down. But this ‘promise one thing manage to another’ is important. And I don’t even believe most older managers even recognize they are breaking promises.

And it not only bleeds into the work place attitudes & culture, but it bleeds the organization of its lifeblood.

Work ethic is a tricky thing to discuss.

Research has shown that work ethic varies with education level, whether a person works full-time or part-time, income level and marital status.  The lower the level of education of an employee, the higher their work ethic has been found to be. People with full-time jobs were found to be less likely to endorse a protestant work ethic than people with part-time jobs; and people with low incomes and those who were married tended to report stronger protestant work ethic (Tang and Tzeng, 1992).

The perception of how hard one works may also be associated with how individuals themselves approach tasks as well.  For instance, boomers have often been characterized as being process-oriented, while younger generations, as being results-focused, irrespective of where and when the task is done.

While younger workers focus on high productivity, they may be happier with the flexibility of completing a task at their own pace and managing their own time, as long as they get the job done right and by the deadline.

—————————–

So … while we wring our hands and bitch & moan about ‘these young people today’ with other older business folk, if we could keep our pie holes shut for a minute or two and listen … REALLY listen, we could hear the dismay and despairs of the fall of their dreams.

=================

“From where you are you can hear their dreams. The dismays and despairs and flight and fall and big seas of their dreams.”

Dylan Thomas

======================

We older folk <managers & leaders & parents> are so focused on outcome that we are losing sight of our future generation aspirations, hopes & dreams. Even on a practical sense of those words.

If you look at the typical path of life for most people, maybe about 90% of the journey is spent working toward achieving various goals and only maybe10% in the actual results <and I am most likely skewing the results number high>.

Yet.

In the business world we invest 90% of our energy focused on result analysis <and rewards & such> and only 10% on the journey. And … please … please don’t tell me this doesn’t affect how the young perceive how things should be done <or that it is ‘good lessons for them to learn’>.

Because we are teaching them not only the wrong lessons but also ones they do not believe in. and the risks are high <for our future> By the way … our outcome focus also further widens the gap between the haves and the have nots … for different reasons:

–           outcome orientation for middle/upper class means ‘do whatever it takes’ to achieve outcome type attitudes … that includes bending the rules, cheating & plagiarism <at its worst> or simple manipulation of the system to my benefit at its best …

–          outcome orientation for lower middle/lower class means ‘give up’ <lose hope> because (a) they do not have the resources to compete with middle/upper and (b) they have an inherently lower probability of attaining the success middle/upper does so why put the energy in <and put the energy elsewhere instead>.

But that is a separate rant.

Anyway.

Research is loud and clear. If you don’t model values <or something other than outcome>, verbalizing, even enthusiastically or passionately, may not help in the short run. And in the long run verbalizing is less effective than doing while saying nothing at all.

People often believe that character causes action … well … when it comes to producing a young moral business generation we need to remember that action also shapes character. Our behavior, this relentless pursuit of outcome & results, builds or unbuilds the next business generation.

In the end.

This ends up being a large complex issue of changing attitudes & behaviors … of older business people not younger business people. Or maybe even on a larger scale … older people and not younger people.

This also ends up meaning some troubling self reflection.

Maybe all of us older folk need to take a step back and as the psychologist Karl Weick says:

===================

“How can I know who I am until I see what I do? How can I know what I value until I see where I go?”

====================

Maybe the better question is:

“how often do I make promises on hope … and manage behavior by fear?”

We created this outcome generation and some of us cannot wait to ‘unmake it’ so that young people don’t live in constant fear of “am I generating outcomes” and instead build businesses of substance & value beyond simple transactions & outcomes. Ponder.

With all the noise and headlines about “the new normal” or “there is no going back to the normal I would remind everyone that Normalcy is functional. That doesn’t sound flashy nor does it sound defendable or even worthy of defending. In fact. It almost sounds like we should be hungrily scanning about for some ‘new normal.’

That said. “Normal” may not be greatly functional nor does it means there isn’t any dysfunctionality but, in general, it is a mix of good and bad and average in which the majority of people accept it as just part of what Life is supposed to be like. In other words. Everything just seems like it is in its place. So. For the most part most people do not see any reason to raise their voices complaining nor do they sing out loud praises. It is what it is and, well, silence about it seems the order of the day.

That’s why when someone starts yelling about shit most of us just find it annoying, and ignore it. And that’s why when the everyday normal gets shaken like an etch-a-sketch we not only find it annoying but uncomfortable.

Note: To be clear. Normal can mask a shitload of issues – good & bad. Inequality, the net positives of globalization & the negatives. The net positives of regulations & the negative of overregulation. The maddening underbelly of individual responsibility (the narrative that if everyone works hard they will be successful).

Regardless. This is where normal enters into a danger zone and its good aspects get threatened. The shouting veers into the conspiracies, the fringe and the wacky almost suggesting the normal is the abnormal and the abnormal should be considered normal. All of a sudden, in its silence, normal becomes complicit to the abnormal and, worse, normal becomes the “them” in an us-versus-them narrative.

Look.

I know a shitload of people will suggest that ‘normal’ is defined by the individual and how they view life but, in general, at one end of the  ‘how to live your life’ spectrum is wacko eccentric person and the other end is bland milquetoast-boring-to-tears person.

Most of us reside somewhere in the middle of all that.

I tend to believe the problem is in how we most often have this discussion. When we talk about living a ‘normal’ life it almost seems destined for some boredom or stagnancy or even “rut-like features” and certainly when you decide to sit back with some self-reflection, uhm …, it will most likely be generously dipped in some disappointment. On the other hand, it seems like choosing to live an ‘anything but normal’ life it almost seems destined for some sanity challenges and certainly some self-reflection generously dipped in some discouragement.

Yikes. So your choice is either disappointment, or discouragement, all wrapped up in a feeling of some injustice occurring.

Yeah. All of a sudden normal is painted in a broad brush of injustice. And it is within that ‘injustice’ in which normal’s silence is damned because the angry, the ones who see conspiracies somewhere (in the cracks of normal) which create their sense of injustice – are loud. They shout. They can be rough around the edges supported by some slick few who egg them on. And they are not silent.

The unsilent slip into the cracks of good normal and pry open some of the bad normal and take advantage. They use slivers of truth (injustice), tack on a fact or two and all of a sudden they hold up a new new normal for people to consider. And, if you are not paying attention (or if normal remains silent), all of a sudden the lone loud voice is deemed worthy of consideration.

This is not only crazy, it dangerous.

Yeah. Sometimes the shit you do may be out of the mainstream, but 99% of the time it is not unacceptable to everyone. It is just is not the normal everyday 100% of the time shit people see or hear.

Whether you like it or not … suggesting ‘normal’ is completely self-defined is … well … stupid.

Yes. You should have your own way of seeing the world and the life you’re living.

Yes. You should feel it is normal <as long as it is not a ‘statement’ but rather a natural extension of your ‘self’>.

Yes. You should accept the idea that other people may feel differently about your version of normal.

All that said here is where I think normal and abnormal go into conflict.

Yes. You should understand that normal is actually defined by some standard operating procedures of the people, society & culture as a whole.

And, no, I am not suggesting some of the wacky crap society thrusts upon an individual <society tells me how I should be stuff>, but rather the fact cultures, civilizations in a broader perspective, define some accepted rules of behavior – some “what I should do” stuff.

Let’s call them ‘core life action basics.’ These are some normal principles which everyone should do and think in a normal day and a normal life.

Here is what I believe.

The good news for people who balk at ‘normal.’ The great thing about culture is it tends to give an individual a lot of room to expand upon these things. You can go about your life wearing whatever clothes you want and saying a bunch of different words as personal expression beyond the core. I call that ‘window dressing stuff.’ In other words, I can dress up my core ‘normality crap’ in pretty much anything I want and express it with almost any words I want.

The trouble occurs mostly around the fact that some individuals infringe upon the core, change the core and sometimes do things which do not meet what most people would accept as accepted normal behavior.

Here is not just a Life truth, but a civilization truth: a culture cannot permit that ‘abnormal normal’ to become normalized simply because they are shouting about some claimed injustice. While we often suggest it takes courage to express yourself in some ‘not-so-normal’ ways it actually takes even more courage to defend core normality. In other words. Sometimes normal demands NOT being silent.

When it comes to this topic the bravest people in the world are not the ones who stand out through self-expression of self-identity, even if that identity is ‘not the normal’, but rather the people who unflinchingly defend normal core beliefs, principles & behaviors and unflinchingly express these ‘normal’ ideas.

I imagine the problem is that those people are not interesting enough to make splashy headlines nor are they boring enough to be masticated for being milquetoast. And, yet, they were the bravest of us all. They chose to be normal & defend the good found within normal and fought relentlessly for both.

In the end.

Normalcy is silent at the moment. Why should it speak? It is what it is. Yet. In a world in which many of the advocates for abnormal, the fringe, the conspiracies, the “new normal”, are shouting at the top of their lungs, can normal remain silent? Can normal AFFORD to be silent? I do not believe it can.

Yes. Some things do need to be fixed. Yes. Some things need to be designed better (how we work, how society interacts, how globalization works, etc). But to suggest that ‘normal’ is bad in & of itself is wrong. Normal offers, well, sanity, some consistency, threads of functionality. Maybe we just need to be optimizing normal and not seeking some ‘new normal.’

Anyway.

We need not always shout, but, normal needs to defend itself. It is time for normal to start fighting back. It is time for normal to not be silent.

====================

Author’s note:

My pinned tweet, almost from day one I returned to twitter in 2016, is “In this time, at this place, I will be defined”.

At that moment I felt like we were at a ‘tide in the affairs of men’ and being silent was not an option. My view has not changed at all; however, my attention has been drawn toward, well, normalcy. While I believe Trump is malignant to democracy, freedom and being enlightened (he espouses ignorance) his greater malignancy is toward normal. He seems to thrive on suggesting normal, everything that exists within it presently, is bad and ‘normal’ should be defined through isolationism and a 1950’s lens. Tack on a pandemic in which “how one normally lives & works a normal day” has been unbundled and Normal’s narrative has been jumbled. I say all that because maybe “I will be defined” by how I best define what is a good normal and what we should be doing to fix the bad normal.

Ponder that.

===

“What people don’t understand doesn’t exist.”

Jan Carlzon

——–

“Chance favors the connected mind.”

Steven Johnson

===

Ok. We chase a lot of things in business in search of ‘advantage’. We sometimes chase them so blindly and relentlessly we don’t even recognize the rabbit hole we have started running down. Differentiation is one of those rabbit holes.

Now. I have a warped perspective <it includes rabbit holes> with regard to differentiation and differentiating in the business world. I think it’s a shit objective. Ok. It CAN be a shithole objective. But suffice it to say I believe chasing differentiation is … well … yes … often a rabbit hole.

To be clear. I don’t dislike differentiation and I believe a well differentiated sustainable idea can dominate a market. But. Chasing differentiation seems to take on some fairly absurd efforts to attain the objective. In addition. I worry about differentiation as an objective because it points people in the wrong direction. If I were to kill this whole differentiation thing, I would begin by saying “define, define, define.” Define yourself with such a clear distinctive thought that permits you stand up and say ‘here is who I am.’

Here is the deal. Sometimes you may look similar to someone else. But more often you will look like ,well, you. And in a sometimes complex fragmented world where everyone is shouting how different they are <and people are becoming more & more cynical> distinctness can win. And more often than not you will also be, well, different. In addition. In today’s world about the only sustainable differentiation isn’t a thing, it is knowledge, thinking & what you have done with what you learn.

Regardless. The meaningless rabbit hole. In our blind pursuit of differentiation we can make some fairly absurd decisions with regard to thoughtless specialization, nuanced differentiation and niche definition. In our blind pursuit of differentiation we can gleefully land on some ‘spot’ and declare differentiation victory only to have it all negated because of lack of alignment throughout all aspects of operations. Attempted, or false/meaningless, differentiation is useless and distracting and a rabbit hole.

Bottom line on differentiation is the reckless pursuit of it encourages us to lie to ourselves, i.e., convince ourselves of ‘true difference’ when it is simply meaningless differentiation. And therein lies the worst of the rabbit hole. Pretending to not see the truth, or maybe <to be kinder>, to pretend it is what it isn’t.

—————

“… the person who pretends to not see the truth is committing something much worse than a mortal sin, which can only ruin one’s soul – but instead committing us all to lifetimes of pain.

The truth is not just something we bring to light to amuse ourselves; the truth is the axis munid, the dead center of the earth. When it’s out of place nothing is right; everyone is in the wrong place; no light can penetrate. Happiness evades us and we spread pain and misery wherever we go. Each person, above all others, has an obligation to recognize the truth and stand by it.”

Jacque Silette

—————-

That last point is semi-important because many business people simply ignore truth as they pursue this elusive <and debatably poor objective> thing called differentiation. Far <far> too many business people embrace acceptable doubt and the possibility that a stupid belief might have something going for it in the pursuit of ‘differentiation’ all the while completely ignoring something that makes you distinct <but possibly not different>, or, let’s call it ‘an obvious and rational truth.’ People ignore it because they believe it will get you nowhere.

Trust me. These are the meetings and discussions in which I often sit dumbfounded and silent and thinking ‘wow … the rabbit hole just gained a whole new crowd of loons.’

—-

“…I was calm on the outside but thinking all the time.”

A Clockwork Orange

———-

Our relentless pursuit of differentiating most often than not leads to an unimportant product feature <not what customers consider valuable>

–——-

“Differentiation is a unique quality, perceived or real, of a good or service that distinguish it from a competing good or service…”

Your Dictionary.com

——–

Look. I fully realize that the need to be distinctive and competitive are the reasons why the company needs to think about differentiation.  However, differentiation can take on so many faces there is no reason you should end up chasing down some rabbit hole for some elusive ‘this is what you MUST seek’ objective as defined by one expert <only to have another expert state unequivocally you need to chase another completely different shiny object>.

Suffice it to say, I can almost guarantee whenever someone brings up differentiation it is more often than not simply code for “please enter this rabbit hole.”

Next. The perfection rabbit hole. On a parallel course is a similar group chasing perfection often ending up in the same rabbit hole as the differentiators <can get awful crowded in that business rabbit hole>. The pursuit of perfection is an insidious rabbit hole. Its stench seeps into the darkest corners of an organization. And while the stench is enough to make anyone’s stomach heave most organizations have people with no real ability and yet strive to maintain an aura of ability under the guise of ‘seeking perfection for the good of the organization.’

More good employees are actually LED into the perfection rabbit hole than employees who actually CHOOSE to dive into the perfection rabbit hole. That said. Organizations are built over this particular rabbit hole. Every organization. It is the unfortunate burden of every organization to deal with the pursuit of perfection.

————–

“Just because you took longer than others doesn’t mean you failed.”

Hassann

—————

Maybe that is my biggest point about rabbit holes and business. Some of the things we seek most in business, whether it be differentiation or perfection or whatever silly thing you have decided will better your business, always seem to take longer than what you want. We get impatient. And if we get really thoughtful about this whole impatience we would realize that our aggravation is with Life and not any inability within ourselves <or even in assessment the foolish pursuit of this un-real reality objective>.

Note:

we SHOULD be more thoughtful about this more often … mostly because if we do not far too many of the wrong people get fired <the right ones> and too many of the wrong people <the wrong ones> get praised and encouraged to maintain the ‘pursuit’ for the good f the organization.

Regardless. Life does not suffer fools lightly. Life is oblivious to your impatience <and relatively indifferent to you in general>. And Life bleeds into any and every organization.

How does Life deal with the fools and silly impatient people? Rabbit holes. It gives us rabbit holes to chase after silly things and dive into in our relentless pursuit of attaining “it” and waste our lives wandering aimlessly within.

But here is where Business and personal Life diverge.

In personal Life you are responsible for the stupid choices you make. Choose to enter a rabbit hole and the issue is all yours to own. In business you can actually get shoved into a rabbit hole whether you want to or not.

All I can tell you is that when I hear someone leading a discussion about ‘how are we different’ and ‘what’s our differentiation?” I start swiveling my head around scanning for rabbit holes.

All I can tell you is that when I hear someone in the hallway espousing the need to pursue perfection I start swiveling my head around scanning for rabbit holes.

 All I can tell you is that when I am in a meeting and someone is discussing both differentiation and perfection I don’t swivel my head, I just sigh, because I know I am already in a rabbit hole.

That is business … and rabbit holes. Ponder.

===

“And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”

<Beyond Good and Evil> Friedrich Nietzsche

===

Well. This is mostly about being different.

Well. Actually. Maybe this is just about being yourself.

I say this because everyone is different. Sometimes discernible to the naked eye and sometimes not, but different nonetheless.

Now, unfortunately, discernible or not, sometimes being different seems to put you in some hole where you appear to live where no one else lives.

Oddly enough if you can actually get out of the hole you would simply see that almost everyone has their own hole that Life makes you climb in and out of on occasion.

But inevitably, at some point, Life puts you in your hole and leaves you there … alone … with your thoughts, These are thoughts of how different you are or how different you think or simply how different your life is from every one else … and Life doesn’t help you get out of the hole. Because it is yours. And it is yours to figure out how to get out of.

Stay in the hole long enough and, yes, it begins to look like an abyss. A never ending abyss leading to some sort of personal hell.

Which leads me to being yourself is extremely different in your tween & teen years than in your adult years.

In other words, not all holes and abysses are created equal.

We may like to think so but they aren’t.

An adult abyss is significantly different than a teen abyss.

I am certainly not suggesting that at any age you can find your way into a variety of different holes just that the experience of being in a hole is different.

In fact this hole thing, or the abyss if you get stuck in the hole, or when this abyss looks back at you it means that when you begin to know something that is fundamentally different from yourself and you take a piece of it with you and it changes you and vice versa well, all that I just said ? Yeah. That much is pretty much the same at any age.

But that assumes you get out of the frickin’ abyss.

And the truth is that ability can only come from Life experience.

Young people just don’t know how to get out of the hole. They just don’t have the experience.

And even as we know some adults need help getting out of the hole, young people DEFINITELY need help getting out of the hole.

The adult example?

I will use a wonderful West Wing tv show episode, Noël, scene where Leo tells Josh the following story:

“This guy’s walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out.

“A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, ‘Hey you. Can you help me out?’ The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

    “Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, ‘Father, I’m down in this hole can you help me out?’ The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on

“Then a friend walks by, ‘Hey, Joe, it’s me can you help me out?’ And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, ‘Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.’ The friend says, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.'”

<West Wing Hole scene>

These are smart adults.

Well.

Kids need the same help.

And I say this unequivocally just in case you look around and see they are shrugging off the help or adamantly opposing the help or any other type of typical tween/teen independent ‘fuck you I don’t need your help’ attitude you will get.

Kids need help getting out of holes.

That’s it. No ifs, ands or buts.

They may not like asking for help … but they need it.

Look.

We encourage young people to embrace their individuality.

And we should.

But with that encouragement also comes a responsibility. For if they do embrace their individuality they will also be embracing the fact that they are in some form or fashion … different.

We don’t want our kids to be alike.

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”

The Dawn

Self esteem really isn’t about ‘being alike’ or similarities or being part of the crowd. Sure. It can play a role. But real self esteem comes from embracing the individuality, the ‘true to thineself’ aspect, that lies within everyone if they seek it.

And in that path to a strong self esteem there are potholes and sometimes some really big deep frickin’ holes.

I can almost guarantee every kid will either slip into a hole or go crashing into a hole at some point in their young Life. I can guarantee that because there are so many holes, real ones and created ones <the worries that inevitably follow a young person through their teen years>, that it is simply not possible to miss them all.

I will share a teen truth just to remind all of us adults:

Teen life and high school is not really a melting pot but more a jungle, run along crude and arbitrary lines of popularity. The kids <today as was yesterday> face the onslaught full spectrum of adolescent anxiety … worrying what your peers will think … secret crushes <and finding the courage to tell the object of what is sometimes simply a fantasy> … worrying you’re too poor <or too rich>, worrying about your parents … worrying if you are good enough … even worrying if haven’t rolled the cuff of your jeans  up just high enough to be right.

Some of that sound silly? You bet.

But we should take it all seriously.

Teen life is the worst and the best of Life.

It has dark, brutal undercurrents and the glittery sparkles of Hollywood all tempered by the disturbing ongoing clash of the dream and the reality.

Which leads me to say that they will need help getting out of whatever hole they fall in. And I am talking about active help, not simply insuring they now they have some intangible support system to lean on or reach out to. I say that because we are often quite flippant with regard to the belief that we are ‘there for them’ and the reality is that sometimes when they fall in one of their holes … they not only lose sight of you <and everything else> but the abyss steals their voice.

For any number of reasons <fear, insecurity, embarrassment, esteem, misplaced courage, independence, rebellion> they will not speak up … or out from the hole.

You have to be active. You cannot simply say ‘here is a rope and I can pull you up if you need help and take it.’ More often we have to jump in the hole yourself and join them.

Why? Because if you permit them to linger too long in the hole … well … the abyss will gaze into them. And inevitably that abyss will find some dark corner in the mind and will find a place to live, eat and breathe for years and years to come.

Look.

Holes are fine in Life.

They are part of Life.

You just have to make sure you know how to get out of them.

Just make sure you teach kids around you to get out of them.

Make sure you do not simply offer a lifeline out of a hole, but jump in with them and show them the way out.

It will be a Life lesson they will never forget.

Ponder.

=====

Everyone was born with a limited amount of fucks to give.

During your teenage years you give a ton and slowly give less and less from there.

just shower thoughts

=====

When I saw this quote had to sit back and think.

Why?

Because I could read it two ways.

First.

As you get older you just get worn down and just stop giving a fuck about a lot of things.

Second.

As you get older you learn that not everything deserves ‘giving a fuck’ and you give less, but, you should give more of a fuck when you do.

I pondered this a little.

And then I got curious and found that if you type “give a fuck” in google search you will get about 4,610,000 results (0.38 seconds), but … here is the interesting thing  … you get page after page on ‘philosophy <or ‘the art’> of not giving a fuck.’

Basically the internet is strewn with articles and advice on how to not give a fuck. How crazy is that? It is almost like the google world is attempting to offer some extraordinary justification for being indifferent, to actually practice being indifferent, which, in my mind, is maybe a different slant on how to be a complete moron.

I mean, c’mon, if we really only have a limited amount of fucks to give, well, wouldn’t you expect some really good advice on how to prioritize and parse them out? I say that because it seems like we could all use some good advice with regard to knowing when to give a fuck and when not to give a fuck.

I will say one thing about giving a fuck. Caring about shit is the essence of Life.

Ok. Maybe two things.

Caring and actively engaging in shit is the essence of Life <I actually called it RSVP and Life once>.

But. The moment you become indifferent, the moment you just don’t give a fuck, well, there is no Life. There is no heartbeat. Life is dead.

I am certainly not going to suggest you care about everything. I will not because I agree that we do not have an unlimited amount of fucks to give. But it just doesn’t make sense to not care.

Now. Life does a fairly good job of suggesting not giving a fuck is a much easier way of living Life.

Life is full of a lot of shit we don’t understand.

Life is full of a lot of things that just do not seem to make sense.

Life is full of a lot of things that just doesn’t seem logical.

Life is full of a lot of things that seem different than what you want or think about.

Life is full of a lot of questions and a lot fewer answers than we want.

Life is full of a lot of answers that don’t really solve anything.

Life is full of a lot of things that make you scratch your head and say “I never understood why.”

All of those things seem like “slow” as in “a lot of shit that will slow me down from getting to where I want to go and getting what I want to get.”

I imagine after reading that list and my last sentence many people may think “then why give a fuck.”

Well. Because none of those things make Life any ‘less’ or any less meaningful. They just make it a little less certain. They just make things a little more risky. They just make it all a little less straightforward.

In fact I could suggest that almost all Life throws at you could fall into the “WTF category”. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give a fuck.

Anyway. I agree with the opening quote. I don’t believe we have an unlimited amount of fucks to give. That doesn’t mean we only have one or two just that they are not unlimited.

But that doesn’t mean you should embrace the thought “well, I have no more fucks to give … so … I just don’t give a fuck about anything anymore.” Nor should it mean you should start seeking opportunities to not give a fuck under the belief it will help you get what you want and where you want to be faster.

Look. Here is what I know about giving a fuck.

If you give enough of a fuck about your life, and trust it to give a fuck about you on occasion, well, a fuck of a lot of good things can happen if you just fucking go out and work hard. Ponder.

============

“Community is the fact that we work toward the same goal, that we accept our respective roles in order to reach it.

Values is the fact we trust each other.

And, culture?

Culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit. That matters because most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.”

Fredrick Backman

===============

“You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.”

Colin Powell

=================

Well. The relationship between secrets and culture and community is one which is fraught with contradictions, conflict and humanness.

I imagine this conflict is driven by the natural chafing between self-interest and community <I have called this community individualism & Enlightened Individualism in the past>.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We talk a lot about community and team and all of that good stuff. And we talk about it with good intentions. The problem is that true community demands some sacrifice.

Therein lies our big secrets.

On occasion we decide self-interest is more important than sacrifice.

Uhm.

This is a version of ‘what you can get away with.’

That phrase sounds horribly horrible. It suggests nefarious type behavior. But the truth of it is most of us see what we can get away with on some very personal day-to-day less-than-nefarious type stuff.

• We cut some corners.

• We maybe don’t tell people how we truly feel <or who we truly are>.

• We steal some post-it notes.

These are our little secrets.

We may even have some bigger personal secrets that we decide are just not things we want to share <these are not nefarious … just personal>.

Regardless.

For many of us our behavior arcs toward what we can get away with. That doesn’t mean it is completely unethical, or some abhorrent behavior, just that while norms set a ‘median’ standard guideline Life is constantly suggesting ‘but this one time you can get away with doing this.”

Which leads me back to the real issue.

The issue resides with the friction between culture and community and self. What I mean by that is the stronger & more powerful the cultural community norm is the bigger your secret becomes if you avoid the norms. This secret takes on exponential size if you start believing that the norms that are good for you are good and the ones that don’t match up with what you believe is your self-interest are bad.

You only accept the existence of the formal and informal cultural norm structure that constitutes accepted community construct, uhm, only as long as that suits your purposes.

Your big secret, therefore, doesn’t have to do with your own behavior, but rather in your non-belief ,if not overall disdain, for the community norms.

Which leads me to hate.

Why hate?

When you decide to see what you can get away with, you have to mentally divide community into “we” and “they.” And in doing so you make ‘we’ good <which suggests what you can get away with is on the side of good> and, conversely, you make ‘they’ bad.

This is a simplistic tactic for attempting to carry the burden of a big secret.

Hate is simple and hate can be an incredibly powerful empowering emotion.

Why?

In this scenario, using hate, the world becomes much easier to understand and less confusing, in the scheme of things, if you divide everything into friends & enemies, good & evil, right & wrong and a basic we & they.

This helps us because the world is strewn with conflict. Not just physical war, but of ideas, thoughts, beliefs and attitudes. Cultures, communities and classes are bombarded with conflict after conflict. And maybe because of the sheer amount of conflict one of the first things we do is pick sides. We choose a side to stand on because … well … it is easier. It is easier than thinking or, even more difficult, trying to hold parts of two ideas which appear in conflict in our heads at the same time. And once we have chosen a side we then go out and seek some information, or ‘facts’, to confirm not only what we believe but the side we have chosen – this permits us to maintain the status quo and chug along with Life as ‘normal.’

Oh. Yeah.

And then we proceed to do is demonize, or dehumanize, the other side. We diminish them. Make them, their thoughts & ideas, lesser than.

……. making “they” smaller ……..

I would suggest this all just makes you smaller as a person <carrying around a big secret>.

Which leads me to say that big secrets make small people.

Yeah. Unfortunately all of us become smaller with a big secret.

And this smallness is compounded by the unfortunate fact that you become even smaller when ‘we’ are the people who others HAVE to keep big secrets from because they believe, and know, we cannot handle them <or don’t believe in them>.

All secrets carry a weight to them.

===

“To agree to keep a secret is to assume a burden.”

Sam Harris

===

In fact I could argue that all knowledge is a burden. It carries a weight of responsibility with regard to what you do with it, how you act because you have it, as well as how you think about you, and others, with it. Oh. Secrets ARE knowledge.

Having accepted knowledge you have made an agreement with it. I tend to believe we don’t think about this. We accept knowledge as … well … maybe like income earned – disposable income in fact. We worked for it, we earned it and it is now ours to spend as we choose.

But knowledge is actually more like freedom. It is an unalienable right, but it is also a privilege and therefore one assumes a responsibility to it.

Uhm.

And with responsibility comes burden. Which almost sounds odd in that something with ‘free’ in it also carries such a heavy burden. Maybe I should just suggest that nothing really comes for free, i.e., everything has something attached to it.

Knowledge?

Responsibility. The burden of responsibility. And that is a weight you carry. One which can be as light or as heavy as you make it. But. It is a weight nonetheless. One which you learn to carry well or carry poorly.

Knowledge tests our ability and our character with regard to how well we can carry this weight. It tests how strong we are .. once again … in ability and in character.

Having said that <and most likely having a number of people feeling a little uncomfortable thinking about knowledge that way>.

Secrets are a completely different level of a knowledge burden.

And secrets are tricky.

• Some are thrust upon you — unwanted but yet yours nonetheless.
• Some are gifted you — carefully shared by someone who believes the weight it carries is too much for themselves … alone.
• Some are just yours — built by you and carried by you.

But regardless of how you assume the responsibility of a secret; it is also knowledge. And therefore it also carries a burden, a responsibility, and a weight.

I don’t have the scale to weigh them, but my guess is that a knowledge secret exponentially weighs more than a traditional knowledge.

I also don’t have any research, but I also tend to believe, just like extra physical weight, as soon as we start feeling the extra weight of a secret … we seek to shed it.

Therein lies the true test of character.

Therein lies how big secrets can make small people.

All knowledge tests you. Secrets test you even more.

Knowledge, and secrets, take a strength of self to carry its weight.

The weight of responsibility of having the knowledge, the weight of freedom knowledge typically gives us and the weight of character that knowledge either makes you bigger or makes you smaller.

Whew.

That is a lot of extra weight we have accepted by taking on these secrets.

Which leads me to good.

As in good people doing good things. And as in good versus almost good.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that sometimes very thin line between good and almost-good can make a massive difference in life. That sometimes very thin line can decide whether your secret makes you bigger or smaller.

Look.

If you are clever enough, even if you embrace community, you can get away with a shitload of stuff. But cleverness does not eliminate the fact you gain a bigger secret burden with every action.

And you know what?

The “community” knows we struggle with this a individuals. In fact it has even created some ‘auxiliary precautions’ to help us avoid unnecessary secrets.

Huh?

This is James Madison’s Federalist Paper #51 or “if men were angels” argument:

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If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

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We are no angels as people.

Secrets bear that truth out.

And … well … we all carry secrets.

And … the bigger the secrets the smaller we become.

Ponder.