I am on a short lunch break between client meetings so if this cuts off quickly, it is what it is :)
Towards the end of the previous meeting my client asked me about a case that they are experiencing and how to get the best out of one of the staff members who is under-performing in the workplace, they just don't seem interested in getting their job done. I'd predict that they are either somewhat bored or like me, they are not interested in doing the paperwork side of the job required unless there is a sense of urgency.
This second one about urgency is quite common. We often don't do things necessary unless we are somewhat pressured into doing them by circumstance. Many people don't look for a job until they need the money, think about what they eat until they are overweight or consider how they treat the environment until living in squalor. While people are arguing about the cause of climate change, pollution keeps piling up, something no one wants more of, yet won't act upon until they are personally affected by it. Of course, often we wait too long to act.
The last week or so I have spoken a fair bit about personal narrative creating our experience and our behaviors and I always speak heavily about personal responsibility as I see our lives as our own, and that includes our lives in relationship to others. However, who's responsibility is it to create the conditions where we are able to perform at our best? Perhaps you expect an authority of some kind to develop a world that provides you opportunity.
We rarely think very far into our future and while many believe that they are living in the moment when they scream YOLO! and spend all of their resources now, they fail to recognize that time is a concept only that tracks movement and movement always has ramifications and consequences. The moment is eternal and what we do in this moment will affect but be indivisible from the next, except in concept of past and future.
So, when it comes to being our best, we are all essentially being our best in each moment based on who we are and the conditions but, through our behaviors we are able to affect both who we are from an attitude, perspective or skill position and, our conditions. We can improve ourselves and the environment in which we operate to increase both what our best is and, our experience of life itself.
If we aren't willing to take the responsibility for improving ourselves and the environment for ourselves to perform at our best, what chance does someone given authority through proxy have of doing it for us? The funny thing is that while many people argue over what is right and wrong in the world, there are other people who are making their lives and world better without concern for the definitions.
If you are suffering, the first place to look for the cause is the mirror.
Most won't though, they are trained to be victims of life, not agents within it. We are encouraged to desire what we don't need, feel bad when we don't get it and find someone to blame for why, generally someone who has what we have. Blame foreigners for stealing jobs we are unwilling to do, the Chinese for pollution while they make the products we demand and the banks and governments for our financial state while we take more loans and encourage more wars financed with debt.
It is us, not them, we are them, we created the environment through the decisions we make, the products we buy, the beliefs we hold and the actions we perform. What happened to a sense of community, we killed it thinking we are islands. What happened to all the good men, we destroyed them by making them feel irrelevant. What happened to compassion, we decided it wasn't necessary when my needs became much more important than yours.
It doesn't have to be this way, all things are the sum of all decisions made in the moments past, those we control and those we don't. But, we do have some agency over the story we hold, the actions we make and how we choose to use the tools and resources at our disposal. We can't end the banking industry by supporting it with our purchases, governments through making them authorities or violence by going to war. It is short sighted behavior, blind thinking.
So, do you know what conditions you require to be your best? Aren't you curious? It is your life, find a mirror.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
View this post on Steeve