Experience Redux

[Adapted from Peter Thompson, TGI Monday, 18 February 2013]

People say they have experience.

As you and I know – some of them actually do, though most of them have far less than they think they have or artfully represent – because:

When they state they have 20 year’s experience, in reality, many have 1 year’s experience – 20 times!

There they are doing the same things time after time after time.

·         Getting up at the same time
·         Eating the same food
·         Travelling the same road
·         Doing the same tasks
·         Meeting the same people
·         Going to the same places
·         Saying the same things
·         Going to bed at the same time
·         Watching the same TV programs

The same – the same – the same!

This is NOT, no way, no how – 20 year’s experience.  It’s ONLY the same stuff repeated.

How about…

·         Doing something new – something more exciting
·         Something more – experiential
·         Getting up at a different time
·         Eating different food
·         Travelling a different road
·         Doing different tasks
·         Meeting different people
·         Going to different places
·         Saying different things
·         Going to bed at a different time
·         Watching different TV programs
·         Living a ‘different’ life!

OR, how about doing whatever you do a different way, BETTER, FASTER, more EFFICIENTLY, with HIGHER QUALITY OUTCOMES, with ADVANCED/EXPANDED APPLICATIONS ...

The target here is not simply the reduction of boredom.  It’s increasing and expanding our capacities; it’s “Becoming”; it’s making a statement about YOU, Inc./ME, Inc.; it’s about being on the “A-Team” and in the mainstream.   It’s about how much of a DIFFERENCE we make.  QM 

“You’ve gotta get outta your own self’s way.”

“Change your attitude and change your habits and you can [not only] change who you are [… but become a key ‘Change Agent’ for the world].”  UK Basketball Coach John Calipari

Pathological Dependencies

Eaglets have a physiological dependency to stay in the nest as long as possible until their “flying wings” are ready.  But mother eagles eventually get to a point where they have to push the eaglets out of the nest.  They can only hope they can fly!  [See also “Even Eagles Need a Push” by David McNally, Delacorte Press, New York, 1990)

Humans have a more complex constellation of dependencies, which include: Physiological, psychological, financial, emotional, motivational, recreational and otherwise (e.g., cultural, political, religious/spiritual, vocational and attitudinal).

Unfortunately, great numbers of humans never make the full transition to independence – probably because they never “have to” – they rarely get completely “kicked out of the nest” like eaglets.  And/or they find other “nesting” places. 

I’m defining the incomplete transition as “pathological dependency”.  For eaglets it would be certain death – precipitous as the transition needs to be – if they simply failed to take it upon themselves to “straighten up and fly right” under their own power.  Fortunately, for eaglets, they have a natural instinct that kicks in to spread their wings and soar.  However, the most ingrained natural instinct in humans is to hide their wings and go kicking and screaming against the very winds that might otherwise serve to give them “lift”! 

Rare is the teenager whose parents don’t have to wrench them out of bed every morning to get a productive day underway.  Not-so-rare is the teacher who has to cram knowledge and information into students’ heads, hoping some of it will stick – in spite of both overt and passive-aggressive resistance!  

Curiously, the “free-fall” to mediocrity and oblivion is exhilarating to the uninitiated, coat-tails-clinging so-sojourner: At 16, we can get a driver’s license (to drive someone else’s car); at 18, we get certified as “fully sanctioned” inductees to society with high school diplomas in hand (“earned” with no small investment by teachers, parents and coaches); and at 21, we get legislatively decreed autonomy (simply as a result of the passage of time).  Ain’t life grand!

Then the pathologically challenged move into adult day-care centers – frequently referred to as “Jobs” – where their paths to oblivion and mediocrity are tempered with great angst by employers/supervisors.  When not mercilessly hounded by a supervisor looking over their shoulders, the hopelessly recalcitrant wander off into the never-never land of immediate gratification from video games, YouTube, tweeting, twittering … and worse.  One of my former employees actually rigged a rear-view mirror for his cubical so he could preemptively see a colleague or supervisor approaching his workstation. 

Some never completely “get it” and the dependencies extend to all aspects of life.  Coaches quickly get to wit’s end with minions who exert themselves only when pushed.  Choral directors are flummoxed by would-be singers who constantly make the same mistakes and perpetually “lean” on section leaders to get the notes, rhythms and choreography right.  And the medical professions spend incredible amounts of unnecessary time and expense with patients who can’t or won’t look after themselves. 

Despite all of the above, the human being has an almost inestimable capacity to become not only overtly independent but self-developing and self-correcting.  That transition generally requires a Defining Moment/”Wake-Up Call” comprised by sheer terror or devastating deprivation.  But it CAN happen more spontaneously and doesn’t need to involve trauma or drama. 

Our “birthright” is to be all that we can be.  Spread your wings and GO and BE!  Quartermaster

 

 

Why We Must Buy New

  “I Want it NEW, and I Want it NOW!”

It’s no secret that shopping is a national obsession.  Spend a day at the mall on the weekend (i.e., when there’s NOT a UK basketball game!) and see the merchandise being hauled out or at the post office to see the number of mail-order catalogs being processed, not to mention e*Bay or Amazon traffic on the WEB.  Holiday time is especially notable as shoppers vie for the latest toy or game … or (sorry, dad) most pathetic looking tie!  Truth be told, it really doesn’t much matter WHAT you take home, as long as it’s SOMETHING and as long as it’s NEW.

Why do we like NEW stuff?
 

Why can’t we be satisfied with REGULAR stuff that’s used a little – that’s even survived the test of time?  The art and passion for “rejuvenatin’” and “fixin’ things up” has long since passed and we don’t even give a first thought about recycling things – unless, perhaps, it’s a 1934 Ford Coupe with a rumble seat.  
 

Part of our fixation with newness is that we’ve become a “been there/done that” culture.  Old news is no news and old stuff has had its day, and, while we were THERE, we’re now HERE, and we’re “movin’ on”.  
 

But the bigger part of the fixation – I contend – is the distance NEWNESS puts us from the “ordinary”, and, more particularly, from anything “used”, from dirt, dust and the “cutting room floor” ... from where the thread, metal and plastic first take shape (not to mention the toxic waste) and from where wear and tear and rust and thermodynamic calamity and disorderliness are finally banished and something emerges that is shiny, new, untouched, “virginal”, unspoiled, pristine and completely segregated from the components used in its construction – not to mention from the condition it will unfailingly assume once pressed into service.  (Unless it’s a “collectable”, of course, whose sole character depends on NEVER getting pressed into service, and which only has to be protected from dust, humidity, and the occasional earthquake tremor or hurricane.)  And note the marketing ploy of exaggerating the immaculate differentiation of a product from all of its surroundings by providing distinctive and contrasting background, color, lighting, textures, etc.  In this context, it becomes much easier to comprehend how a person can have a closet full of clothes and “nothing to wear”.  Everything in the closet blends in, and nothing is sufficiently differentiated to stand out – even in “Designer” mixed company.   
 

Another component of the fixation with NEWNESS is that we’re constantly in search of perfection and renewal and we tend to look for it outwardly.  Like a breath of fresh air, we’ve just GOT to have a new something or other to keep going, else we lapse into an unconscionable depression.  An absence of new stuff is like holding our breath: if the dearth of newness doesn’t end soon, we just might DIE!  
 

Finally, “salvation” is perceived as a state of pristine, unadulterated, pure being, and the closer we get to that state, the more “in” we feel with the heavenly throng.  
 

But the real heroes are the ones in the trenches – the ones digging out the diamonds, separating them from the dross, cutting and shaping and polishing them and placing them in the distinctive settings we so delightfully “discover” on the show room floor. 
 

“Become a “trench rat”: Do the digging and become a ‘processing expert’ to create gems for the marketplace and you will neither want for something worthwhile to do nor for due recompense.”  Quartermaster

 

 

How Much Is Enough?

How Much is Enough?

And according to whom?

Is 40 hours a week “enough” in the work arena for where you’re going, for what you expect out of work and life, and for all the things you’re “entitled to”?  I’ve had some employees for whom 20 hours a week was more than “enough”, considering the productive work they did.  But they continued to put in their 40 hours.  Wow!  Is that dedication or what!?!

Sometimes we determine what “enough” is by counting backwards from what constitutes “too much”.  For some, getting to work on time is too much.  For a considerable number, “too much” is whatever interferes with their indulgences and comfort zone. 

Often we determine what “enough” is by what we perceive got us to where we are.  In fact, what got us where we are was a sizeable apportionment of “forgivable loans”.  Such “loans” are investments society and parents make to assure that we can become independently capable of investing our own education (mostly accrued on their dollar), time and energy toward making wise choices to support ourselves.  But the way things work is that the loans become less “forgivable” with time.  It’s a sobering realization to wake up and find – all of a sudden /\ neversomuch too soon – that we’re completely responsible for our own welfare. 

Sometimes we conjecture that “enough” is what we perceive others are doing [or “getting away with”] … all other things being equal.  But our perceptions can be all wrong and “all other things” are hardly ever equal.  Some people have more talent; some have more skill; some have rich uncles; some are skimping on savings; some are sacrificing substantial amounts of personal time; some are spending an hour-a-day at the gym, bringing work home, reading professional journals and going to bed early instead of watching 6 hours of television; some have a lot of family support; some are in debt over their heads; some are more articulate; some are a better “fit” for certain circumstances; and some are running way ahead of themselves.  More to the point, nobody is going where we’re going – wherever that is … unless it’s going down the tubes to oblivion, and that group has lots of company.   

Finally, how much is “enough” to see our Dreams realized?  For starters, it’s not “enough” simply to stand on the shore waiting for “our ship to come in”.  And it’s not “enough” to persist in some non-descript holding pattern while Lady Luck churns her stuff on our behalf through the lottery, bingo or the slot machines. 

You really want to know what “enough” is?

Enough is when you can’t do any more – as in there is nothing more you coulda done.  Life – as we would like to live it and feel fulfilled – is going to take everything we’ve got.

Now get in there/out there and “churn your best stuff” to make the kind of difference in the world that will be worthy of the distinction of which you are worthy and that is yours for the making!   Quartermaster