Thank Goodness It's Monday #459

HOW TO GET OTHERS 

TO LEVEL WITH YOU

Monarchs of old often punished bearers of bad news, making it crystal clear just who was in charge.

As a result, these despots and dictators made decisions based on incomplete or distorted information, a fact that contributed to many military defeats and the crumbling of empires.

Welcome to the 21^st Century: Of course in our enlightened era, we know that the long-term outcome of a “shoot the messenger” strategy is not a more frank and forthright information exchange but, rather, withholding or revising of unpleasant truths.

So – in the “leadership” roles we’ve achieved as managers, or family heads or community leaders and such – we’re more benevolent than those kickin’-it-old-school kings and commissars, right?

Why then do we too often discover, after the fact, that we’ve taken action based on received information that’s distorted, inaccurate, and sketchy?

Why didn’t people level with us? The only way to get accurate information from people is to realize why they hesitate to give it, and act accordingly.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: It’s just like in those “days of old.” People fail to level with other people out of fear. Not like “off with her head” kind of fear but, nonetheless, fear ultimately connected to the psychology of survival.

If you’ve got any power, people are fearful.

Yes, of you pussycat. In all probability few TGIM readers have the fearful power to imprison or hurt people physically. We may even believe we’re perceived as gentle as a kitten.

But we all have power to wield. If you have “boss” status at work, at home or anywhere in the world at large, others recognize you might punish them in any of a thousand subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

Maybe you could fire them.

Or pass them over for promotion.

Or ground them or withhold their allowance.

People certainly don’t want to lose their livelihood or be on anyone’s blacklist.

They don’t even want mild disapproval. They fear – and “fear” is an accurate assessment of the dread feeling they experience – even a sharp remark; even from someone held in high esteem.

Need more proof? Think about what you feel when you find yourself in an inferior position.

TGIM Takeaway: People want to please. (Don’t you?) So, even when they would really like you, and maybe even mean to level with you, they frame their answers in terms of --

“What does she (or he) want to hear?”

The two-part antidote to this truth-distorting situation:

First: Realize that the fear factor isn’t likely to go away.

Then: Skirt it gingerly.

To judge whether you are being properly informed by others, ask yourself a few questions:

• Do people stop talking or change the subject when you begin to speak?
• Do they give you information only when you ask for it?
• Are they reluctant to talk with you at all?
• Do people who must deal directly with you keep “lower-level” personnel away from you.

A “Yes” answer to any of these can be a sign that you’re getting something less than the whole truth.

Watch this: Sometimes individuals who recognize they aren’t getting the straight dope react by grasping for information in a way that makes matters worse. They may alienate their informants by cross-examining them. They may also create truth-twisting suspicion and conflict by inviting people to inform on one another.

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Eliminate the fear factor. Or mitigate it.

Here are a handful of Get-To-The-Truth Tactics that help do that:

Truth Tactic #1: Make a point of talking with people informally – not just when you want to learn something, but as a matter of habit. Chat, exchange small talk, remove the barriers that say, “I’m the boss; you’d better watch what you say.”

Truth Tactic #2: Be accessible to people at all levels. Executives who talk only to the next lower level of management tend to isolate themselves in a bubble of unreality. Accessible execs gain the perspective of a wider range of views.

Case in point: In my ancient days in retailing I knew a VP of Operations who, virtually every morning, walked in through the basement receiving area and up through nine selling floors and support areas to his executive office, engaging with staff along the way. At lunchtime, if he was going out, he reversed the process; otherwise he routinely ate in the company cafeteria. And, at the end of most days, he walked down again through each floor a half hour before closing and was available at the bank of elevators until most everyone had gone home. Outcome: There was rarely an operational “surprise” in his years of service.

Truth Tactic #3: A useful way to skirt the fear of reprisal is to reward people no matter what they tell you, positive or negative. Don’t be one of those people who asks for comments or suggestions and then gets defensive. The people they engage soon learn to keep mum. Say, “Thanks for telling me that,” even if it’s the last thing in the world you want to hear.

In a similar line:

Truth Tactic #4: Be aware of how you sound when you ask for information. Through your wording, tone of voice, even gestures, you can unintentionally prejudice the answer.

And not just in a threatening, repressive way: If you ask with an expectant smile, “How do you like this idea?” you’ll probably come away thinking people love the idea when, perhaps, they are only trying to please.

A better way to gather information: Ask your question in terms of, “Which idea do you prefer, A , B or C?” striving to not indicate your preference.

Truth Tactic #5: When probing for information, realize that people are reluctant to be too negative. So you hear only the positive. They know from experience that even well-intentioned criticism can bring a backlash.

“It’s all good,” isn’t good. Be clear that you want to hear it all. When asking for comments, specify that you also want to be filled in on the minuses, especially if all you’re hearing are positives.

Case in point: A division president asked several people if they liked a recent reorganization. He got kudos all around. Then he asked if they noticed anything that “could be better.” He got many more candid and useful comments.

So level with me. Did this TGIM meet your expectations? Can you recommend ways you think it might have been made better? Have you insights to add?

Please feel free to share your thoughts.

I look forward to learning from you.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

Englewood, NJ 07631

201-569-5373

tgimguy@gmail.com   

P.S.  “The best test of truth is the power of thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) said that in his 1919 decision in Abrams v. United States – which also immortalized the phrase “clear and present danger.”

Thank Goodness It's Monday #458

 LIVE THE DREAM IN 2022?

(OR HAS IT BECOME AN IMPOSSIBLE DREAM?)

Martin Luther King Jr. said: 

"ML" as he was known
in his seminarian years
1948-1951

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 

'What are you doing for others?'"

Today marks yet another Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

After a long struggle, legislation was signed in 1983 creating this Federal Holiday marking the January birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was first observed as such in 1986.

This third-Monday-in-January milestone is a striking opportunity to consider anew how we live the dream in 2022 as well as honor Dr. King’s legacy in these tumultuous times.

There’s a now-often-overlooked "extra" reason why: In 1994, Congress made the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday the only federal holiday also designated as a National Day of Service. (There's a Corporation for National and Community Service charged with leading this effort.)

Because of Dr. King’s dedication to human rights and a better society, the holiday was envisioned to become known as –

“A day on, not a day off.” And people were encouraged to perform acts that strengthen communities, empower individuals, bridge barriers, and create solutions.  

As such this governmental national “call to service” initiative intended to encourage Americans from all walks of life to work together to provide solutions to our most pressing national problems; to empower us individually and collectively to devise and implement solutions to social challenges and move us closer to Dr. King's vision of a "Beloved Community."

So how's that seem to be working out?

Not so well in these wearying 21st Century days, right? Clearly much work lies before us if we are to realize this governmentally endorsed actuation of Dr. King’s dream. 

And, perhaps presciently, MLK Jr. seems to have anticipated this unfortunate reality and formed an observation still painful to recollect.

In 1967 he spoke these words: 

"[This year] finds us a rather bewildered human race. 

We have neither peace within, not peace without. 

Everywhere, paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. 

Our world is sick ... Everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities."

But wait. There's more.

Before we fall into despair, let's also acknowledge the highly instructive follow-on observation to Dr. King's "ominous" analysis. He continued:

"And yet, my friends, 

the hope for peace and goodwill toward men can no longer be dismissed 

as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. 

If we do not have goodwill toward men in this world, 

we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power."

TGIM/MLK Jr. ACTION IDEA: You likely know the following observation, the most famous part of the 1967 message I'm sharing above. As Dr. King concluded --

“We must learn to live together as brothers

 or perish together as fools.”

Everyone should live the dream in 2022. Just as MLK Jr. set big goals and focused relentlessly on results, we need sustained citizen action to address today’s social challenges. 

Even in the current civilian breach, this National Day of Service should remind us we are the inheritors of his intent. For starters, the ongoing day-on dedication of frontline health and service workers in the face of Covid and cultural challenges is a bright reminder of how the capabilities we all possess might be best applied for the greater good.

TGIM/MLK Jr. IDEA IN ACTION: As we understand it in this day and age -- newly shaped in ways MLK Jr. could, perhaps, have barely conceived in 1967 -- we must behave as we imagine he would have us behave.

And in doing so, is it trite to suggest that we, too, shall overcome?

I think not.

MLK Jr.’s charismatic leadership inspired men and women, young and old, in this nation and around the world. His speeches, lectures and writing stirred the concern and sparked the conscience of a generation. Many of his great thoughts, compellingly expressed, live on today.

Among my favorites: 

“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. 

I can never be what I ought to be 

until you are what you ought to be. 

This is the interrelated structure of reality.” 

Already feel you do your part? Then -- in the spirit of Dr. King’s legacy -- share a dream, quote, story, experience of your own. 

Share it today.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing
Englewood, NJ 07631
tgimguy@gmail.com   

Thank Goodness It's Monday #457

 

Thank Goodness It's Monday #457

RESOLUTIONS ALONE ARE BUPKIS

(OH, AND WELCOME TO 2022)

“Bupkis” – if, by chance, you’re not familiar with the word – is a dictionary-accepted English language word more often spoken than written.


The etymology of "bupkis"

 -- if you care to delve deeper --

finds the origins in a Yiddish phrase

concerning goat droppings.

It’s defined as “absolutely nothing; nothing of value, significance, or substance.” 

It’s use in today’s TGIM headline is to both attract your attention and to emphasize an important idea that, I hope, will help us all better keep our newly made resolutions and achieve our 2022 goals as we persue them in these early days of the year.

So let’s get started: On New Year's Eve a decade or so past a fellow celebrator said to me –

“This year I’m not making resolutions,

but finding solutions.”

Hmmm. Interesting idea. And on reflection, I agree.

Now, exactly what the shorthand “no resolutions/solutions” meant for him was not revealed in our passing exchange.

But we can figure out the spirit of it. And we can apply the intent we figure out to any of the fast-lapsing resolutions we may have made just a week ago. If we let them stand simply as stand-alone expressions of intent, the outcome’s bound to be discouraging and disappointing. 

Goals – like final destinations – are for planning. And eventually a well-designed system will be the prime mover in accomplishing what you desire most fervently.

TGIM Takeaway: As my New-Year’s-Eve reveling friend suggested, it’s the solution-creating process we devise and act on that will have the most impact on our goal-achievement outcome.

Correctly assessing your ability and commitment is the starting point. Having a system and routinely reviewing, evaluating, tweaking and finely honing that is what matters in the long run. Then committing to that process is what makes the difference.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: In 2022 -- rather than fretting about big, life-changing goals -- we can keep things simple and reduce stress by focusing on the daily process and sticking to a well-thought-out schedule plotted with an honest assessment of our ability and commitment to sticking to it.

By focusing on the practice and step-by-step performance instead of the big end result, you can enjoy the present moment and improve at the same time. It’s in the assessment and forecasting and development and scheduling and preparing and setting up and execution and adapting to change that we make progress.

Although we can agree you, too, are awesome --
please dig deeper than Garfield does in this year-end Jim Davis strip.

So are you buying this argument?

Are you ready for some solution-finding input?

Here’s some perhaps-fresh insight:

1. Individuals change best when the motivation comes from within rather from the outside. For example, perhaps you think, “There’s not much I can do about my career until we get back to an office setting and my boss shapes up and does something.” Or you might say, “Things would be different for me if only my spouse were to behave differently.”

In these cases you are relying on an external force to make change happen. But as any mentor worth his or her salt should be quick to point out, “Nothing will change until you change.” 

The truth is, you are 100% responsible for you! Any questions?

2022 ACTION IDEA: Take responsibility. Rely on yourself. Set your own priorities. Change occurs more effectively when you say, in essence, “Things must be changed and I am the one who must initiate the change. I must, in fact, change myself first. There are things only I can do which will have the desired payoff for me.” Motivate yourself by getting excited about your goal quest.

2. Individuals change best when their objectives are specific. Maybe this is stating the obvious but let’s be clear: We do more when we have a purposeful direction. Once we have a specific goal, we see change occurring more readily. 

Why? Because specific objectives permit us to seek specific feedback on how we’re doing. General objectives such as “I want to get ahead” or “I want to be somebody” keep you from knowing whether you’re succeeding or failing because they set no goal criterion.

2022 ACTION IDEA: Putting performance measurements, time limits, real milestones and actual rewards in each goal makes it specific and easier to determine whether it’s being achieved or not. And knowing that a desired change is taking place can feed your personal satisfaction.

3. Individuals change best when there is personal commitment. “Oh, I’m committed to making the changes necessary to reach my goals” you tell yourself. 

But face it: It’s more difficult to change in a vacuum. It helps to have feedback.

2022 ACTION IDEA: Tell others. Share your hopes, your dreams and your goals. Other people will be glad to give you feedback, support and ideas. And the more specific you are in detailing your aspirations, the more specific and informative that feedback can be. And by making the commitment “public,” you become more emotionally involved and that also helps you stick to it.

4. Individuals change best when changes are timely and gradual. While the idea that revolutionary change comes dramatically in a flash of brilliance is appealing, life seldom happens like that.

Change takes time. Individual change takes patience and time. Achieving the kind of 2022 goals I hope you set in recent days won’t be finished tomorrow. (If it is I’d like to hear about it.)

2022 ACTION IDEA: Be patient. Most changes require a series of events to occur in some evolving way. Granted, we can help some or all of those events to occur, but even then the magnitude and complexity of achieving great goals demand shifts in attitude, values, policies and procedures – and that takes time and careful planning.

 

There’s more … much more. Obviously. Whole books been written, entire careers have been build upon goal-setting and outcome-achieving strategies. 

But that’s plenty enough for right now. My short-term TGIM goal for today was to put in your hands some proven-in-action solutions you might implement immediately to keep your 2022 Resolution/Goals process on track. 

Hope you found them, at least, worthy of consideration

 

– NOT bupkis. 

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

tgimguy@gmail.com

 

P.S. ““A good system shortens the road to the goal” That old-timey publisher of motivational and inspirational wisdom in his Success magazine, Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924) propounded that bit of rousing opinion.

Thank Goodness It's Monday #456

 IT'S BEEN A WHILE

This first Monday of the New Year of 2022 seems to me a good time to revive this old blog. 

There's certainly been no shortage of thoughtful and thoughtless input across digital media platforms since I last seriously posted here more than a half-dozen years ago. 

And I've certainly raised my voice and also held my tongue (and nose) in many of those places in the interim. Likewise, in the best tradition of recycling, I've resurrected, revised and re-shared not a few thoughts originally aired here. 

But as I reflect now, all that airing and sharing feels a bit out-in-the-ether and impermanent. 

So I've a mind to recommit to this space and process and, with some good fortune, see if I can use it and the process to both focus my thinking and support the original stated premise of this endeavor namely to provide "ideas for your information & inspiration" that might serve as a catalyst to create outcomes beneficial to the days ahead. 

And thus, we begin anew with a bit of philosophizing, seasonally appropriate and evergreen:

"What we call the beginning is often the end. 

And to make an end is to make a beginning. 

The end is where we start from."

Poet T.S. Eliot, (1888-1965) made that clear in "Little Gidding,” the fourth and final poem of his Four Quartets.

A penny for the old man.

And onward we go into 2022.

Persist.

What the Dickens?

BAH! HUMBUG!

OR

“THE CAROL PHILOSOPHY”

The modern idea of how to observe the Christmas season has its roots in the mind of one man:

Sketch of Charles Dickens
made in 1842
on an American tour
(That's his sister, Fanny, on the lower left)

Charles Dickens.

But I bet the story’s not quite as cut-and-dried as you think.

So I’m going to give you a little capsule literary history and in the telling try to uncover a useful Yuletide Takeaway or two that you can re-gift in the best spirit of the season.

For starters, at the core, we’re talking USA-style Christmas with the most plentiful points of reference to Great Britain, OK? So first –

A Ghost of Christmas Past: Long past.

Recall those  Thanksgiving Puritan pilgrims we celebrated last month? For a bunch or reasons they and their kin were not much for observing Christmas.

In fact they were quite “Bah! Humbug!” about the celebrate-Christmas concept. And that was the beginning of the end of the pre-Puritan kind of Yuletide days of elaborate feasting and pageantry and royal splendor that we might imagine.

Old big-scale pomp-filled religious traditions gradually faded into history and Christmas became a quiet celebration in individual homes.

Fast forward and by the Age of Dickens the Industrial Revolution contributed further erosion of plum pudding, mince pie, evergreens, mistletoe and such.

“Work!” was the motto of the time. Christmas was essentially another work day. The poor were too oppressed to celebrate. And those who were well off did not want to “waste” the time and money. (Sense the beginnings of a story here?)

However –

The socially conscious Charles Dickens believed that Christmas could be otherwise enlightening. He felt that the spirit of the season did something positive for him personally and so he set about using his power with the written word to do the same for the rest of the world.

His first attempt, in 1835, in Bell’s Life magazine in London, was called “A Christmas Dinner.” This short sketch described the conviviality of a family forgiving and forgetting the past as it gathers around the Christmas table.

Dickens’ next story on the subject will sound even more familiar:

Cliff-Note synopsis: Unpleasant, cranky guy is annoyed by other people’s cheerfulness on Christmas Eve … is taken by supernatural beings to view scenes of family happiness and good … this convinces him to reform when he awakens the next day.

It’s called (get ready to be surprised)–

The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton. It’s an incidental part of the more notable whole of The Pickwick Papers.

Seven more years pass. Dickens has many successes but, by 1843, he had somewhat fallen out of public favor as a writer. Not as good with money as he was with words, his financial situation had become troublesome for him. His social consciousness had him in an ongoing turmoil about the plight of the poor. He spent much time and effort making speeches appealing for aid to the working class. Then --

In October 1843, while he walked the streets, an idea came to him. He modeled it on “The Goblins …” and embellished it with details from his own life.

1843 First Edition
Title page
Illustrations by John Leech

By the second week of November, he completed his story – A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas – and took it to his publisher.

Because he wanted it to be top quality, he worked on the design of the book, the paper and binding himself. He selected the illustrator. He arranged having the illustrations hand-tinted – all the while striving to keep the price as low as possible so it could be affordable for the audience he intended to influence.  

A few days before Christmas the new little book appeared.

Financially it was not a success. Although it sold well, he made very little from its initial sale because he succeeded too well in delivering quality at a bargain price. (True first editions are currently valued in the $10,000+ range.) Cheaply made pirate editions sold on both sides of the Atlantic also kept him from earning his due. Even when he sued one unethical publisher and won his case, Dickens suffered because the publisher’s bankruptcy left him with no settlement and yet he had court costs to pay.

It took Charles Dickens some time to realize just how completely he had succeeded although he had not made much money.

He wrote other Christmas books, one each year. In 1844 he wrote The Chimes and observed, “I believe I have written a tremendous book, and knocked the Carol out of the field.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Next to the Nativity itself, A Christmas Carol remains the best-known and best-loved (it’s never been out of print) Christmas story of all in all manner of retelling – movies, stage plays, opera, musicals, cartoons, skits and spoofs, and modernized and futurized versions.

• “Scrooge” has entered the vernacular as a synonym for “miser.”
• The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future have haunted us all, regardless of religious affiliation.
• The spirit of the season has bloomed again as a time to think of one’s fellow man.

Yuletide Takeaway: As in most of his writing about the season, Dickens is not particularly concerned with the religious nature of the holiday but with –

The cheerfulness and good feeling between people. A Christmas Carol is the ultimate embodiment of what Dickens himself called –

The ‘Carol’ Philosophy: Christmastime was “a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they were really fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”

Dickens gets the last word. Here it is, from the penultimate paragraph of the book:

“Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.”

No humbug. Intending to do it all and more ... be better than my word ... and have laugher in my heart.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square
Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com   

P.S. “... and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.  May that be truly said of us, and all of us!”

Erev Yom Kippur 5775

“WE THE PEOPLE …” 

Tonight, in one of those curious intersections that happens with traditions keyed to lunar calendars, all-important-to-Muslims rites and rituals involving the Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca, fall at the same as Yom Kippur, the most solemn Jewish Day of Atonement. 

 

It’s unusual that’s for sure. The coinciding Day of Arafat when pilgrims to Mecca will be at Mount Arafat atoning for their sins and misdeeds and the Yom Kippur activities with biblical links to the time of Moses will not happen again for many decades.

Yet the Hajj/Yom Kippur traditions and observances of these oft-times-at-odds “children of Abraham” are remarkably parallel.

The “children of Abraham” connection is the key, of course. As I understand it, the core reason Muslims desire to make their pilgrimage is to honor the Patriarch Abraham, the very same Patriarch Jews honor and revere.

(It’s not clear to me why a corresponding annual atonement/repentance observance isn’t extant in the Christian extension of the family. But I’d speculate that Easter time is closely connected with some elements and the largely secular New Year’s Eve with its resolutions and such is also in play.) 

More to the immediate date and point: The Jewish and Muslim communities worship the essentially same deity. They acknowledge and honor many of the same prophets. Many of the dietary restrictions are held in common. The underlying mindset in rituals of atonement and invocation to that deity for forgiveness and mercy are strikingly similar.

So what?

Most of you probably realize I’m not an especially religious person.  Some who know me more intimately are kind enough to deem my view “spiritual” at times. If pressed I might allow that I think many of my opinions in this region could align with positions I conclude the Founding Fathers of the United States articulated as “Nature’s God.”

 

So I hope to claim some status as a trying-to-remain-impartial outside observer.

And here’s my observation: There’s self-evident truth in today’s particular alignment of traditions. No matter the source or depth of your beliefs, the underlying concepts of –

 

• Spiritual introspection
• Retrospection
• Seeking pardon
• Granting remission or forgiveness
• Atonement, and
• Resolving and vowing to go forward anew. 

-- have legitimacy and power.

Tradition-observant Jews repeat a “confession” several times during the observance of Yom Kippur cataloguing fifty-six categories of “sin.” 

And here’s what’s particularly interesting to me about that and apt to our day and age: 

The confession is recited as a collective “we”

– not an individual “I.”

This tradition is one of sharing each other’s transgressions plus acknowledging general responsibility for the misdeeds of mankind.

TAKEAWAY: We might be well served if the secular “We the people …” could apply ourselves to ways to come together to do that now.

Mosaic floor with seven-branched menorah plus other Jewish ritual objects.
The latter are, from right to left:
a shofar [ram's horn used on the Rosh haShanah holiday];
 an incense shovel as used in the Temple;
an etrog [citron in English], a citrus fruit used on the Sukkot holiday;
what appears to be a lulav, a palm frond, also used on the Sukkot holiday.
The Greek inscription says "Praise for the People."
The mosaic is dated to the 6th century.

Sound the shofar. In ancient Palestine the ram’s horn trumpet was used to signal danger, convene the populace, call for defense, announce a holiday. May you – each and all, without regard to the particulars of our philosophical viewpoints – be inscribed and sealed for a good year.    

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com

Thank Goodness It's Monday #455

TIME OFF FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR

I say that too often, I think. It’s become a go-to phrase for me that slips too easily and mindlessly into the conversation. 

“Time off for good behavior” is usually deployed by me when someone indicates that they’re not going to do something … or that they’re going to do something “entertaining” rather than workaday routine … or that they’re actually giving themselves just that – time off that they feel/know they’ve deservedly earned.

With a common-usage link to the idea of incarceration for some kind of wrongdoing, I guess it’s got a bit of a snarky tone to it. 

One reading: It’s as if I’m implying the break-taker is maybe not quite as deserving as they think they are; as if by doing what’s expected of them they’ve gained some privilege.

• College student off for a spring-break fling? “Ah, been a tough semester, huh?” sez Geoff. “Time off for good behavior.”
• Networking buddy who asks me to sub at morning breakfast while she heads out for her industry’s annual Las Vegas gathering? “Happy to do it,” sez I. “Enjoy your time off for good behavior.”
• Working spouse neighbors who give you the heads up that they’re taking their kids to the Florida theme park experience. Yup. Imagining the air travel and transportation and standing in lines with kids in tow, I drop the phrase again.

But you know what? That’s unfair. Judgmental. And just plain wrong (most of the time).

It’s suddenly obvious to me that, even if dispensed with a smile and expressed with interest in the time-off plans, this note of disapproving approval is rooted perhaps in some bit of envy, or jealousy or desire to be on the partaking side of the equation versus being stuck here in the daily humdrum.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: You deserve a break today. Not to give too much to that old McDonald’s sales pitch, everyone who makes an honest effort, no matter how small or immediately effective, has earned some respite.

Ideally, we all do. And a brief fast-food-sized interlude in the daily routine is just a beginning. Even the dominant guideline of the religious beliefs of many remarks that, on the seventh day, the creator of the world we dwell in rested.

That ought to be a good clue to guide our own behavior.

From a more secular and pragmatic view: No doubt our human batteries need to be routinely and regularly recharged. 

Hardworking English banker, politician, naturalist and archaeologist John Lubbock (1834-1913) certainly knew that. 

Although his scientific work was an avocation, Lubbock discovered the first fossil remains of musk-ox in England (1855), and undertook archaeological work identifying prehistoric cultures. As a naturalist and friend and advocate of Charles Darwin, he studied insect vision and color sense. He published a number of books on natural history and primitive man. He coined the terms Neolithic and Paleolithic.

In 1870, he became a member of Parliament. The legislation he initiated included the Bank Holidays Act (1871) and the Ancient Monuments Act (1882) and the Shop Hours Act (1886). He became 1st Baron Avebury when he was made a peer in 1900.

And, in addition to his work/ life example, he gave us many useful guidelines for living, such as this nicely depicted one from the 1920 collection in the Volume of Contentment we’ve been featuring:

In a similar spirit Lord Avebury also shared these thoughts:

            “A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work.” 

“Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.”

“If we are ever in doubt what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done.”

“We often hear of people breaking down from overwork, but in nine cases out of ten they are really suffering from worry or anxiety.”

“In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is wanting.”

“Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.”

“When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace.” 

“Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it.”

And speaking of character: Here’s my personal Spring Break –

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: I apologize to those I have pestered with my “Time off for good behavior” glibness. To have had your effort at all belittled is unfair. I really do wish you happy interludes to your routine.

Now I think I’ll give myself some time off for good behavior.

Back soon.   

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com

P.S.  And speaking nearly directly to the incarceration premise of “Time off for good behavior,” Lubbock said: “The whole value of solitude depends upon oneself; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it.”