5 Life Lessons In 36 Years

Here's a list of lessons that took 36 years for me to learn.  While I understand that just reading this list is no substitute for actual experience, hopefully it can allow one to arrive to the conclusions a little more expediently than it took me.   

1.  People are selfish.  Big deal, you knew that already, right?  People want to feel important.  People's worlds revolve around themselves.  Obvious lesson, right?  I think I knew that early on, but maybe not quite to the extent that it realistically is.  There are subconscious subtleties to this lesson that I never considered or even fathomed.  It starts at one's desire to hear their own name to wanting money, fame, etc.  We, even me, want it all.  Everything.  It's a deeply rooted, base feeling inside us all.  It's the human condition and can lead to pretty substantial problems.  A surface word for it is greed.  But it's more than that.  It's a subconscious fear of inferiority.  None of us are confident.  We hide it through arrogance and vanity.  But it's there.  

     The lesson, I guess, wasn't that people are selfish.  As I said, I knew that early on.  The real lesson was how to deal with this fact.  It was the 36 year long struggle with how to interact with people in a world of selfishness that was the eye opener.  So here's the secret,if you haven't figured it out yet in your own journey through this tangled world:  Play into it.  Very simple.  Use people's names.  Ask questions from the perspective of what's important to them.  Remember details.  Stop talking and listen.  Do this, and your desire to feel important will be fulfilled, because you'll find that people suddenly want to be around you.  You'll become likable.  Funny how that works.  

     As a manager, I've hired many people.  More applicants than you might realize speak in terms of what they want.  Instant interview killer.  Without being too insensitive, here, I just don't care what they want.  I'm interviewing people to find qualities in someone that I want.  

   

   "So, Mr. So-and-so, why do you want to work for our company?"  

    "Well, I'm ready for a change of pace.  I need to make a higher salary.  I wanted better hours than my previous job and I just had a baby so I need the benefits...."  Blah blah blah.  How about speaking in terms of what the employer might want?

     "I feel that I might be a good fit for your company because I have experience doing x,y,z.  Also I'm really impressed with the operation of your company.  (A little ego stroke). I feel that I can add value to your organization because blah blah blah."  Speak in terms of what other people want.  You will instantaneously become a desirable person to be around and a breath of fresh air to the selfish monotony of other people.  Not just in interviews--that was just an example--but in life.  Talk less, listen more.  And when you do talk, speak in terms of the other person's desires instead of your own.

2.  Nothing is free.  There is a cost to all things.  If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is, and if there is a truer cliche, I don't know it.  We all wish for free things, but there is no substitute for working hard to get it.  Working hard for things adds value to the thing you got and builds confidence when you succeed.  It's not our fault that we feel like sometimes we should catch a break on something.  We are indoctrinated.  As kids, most of us lived with parents who provided for us and for a long time, things truly did seem "free."  It wasn't.  Our parents worked for the "freebies" we enjoyed.  We know that now, as adults, but we still don't fully consider it.  I see it with my kids, too.  We want to provide the very best for them and we do, but there will come a time when we unleash the real world on them and the realization that nothing is free will come to them.  Despite this realization, we desperately want the free ride.  We want a taste of that innocence again, the worry-free attitude of the hand out.  It's a natural feeling but understand that it's gone and it will not come back.  

     There has been a lot of debate recently about government filling that cavity of emptiness we all have.  And it is a tempting notion.  But remember, nothing is free.  Whatever it is, must be paid for by someone, somewhere.

3.  Everyone has skeletons in their closet.  We have all done some things we are not proud of.  We have all made mistakes and have had to live either with the guilt of not getting caught or the consequences of what we did.  We all have embarrassing moments.  We all have memories of something that happened to us that still makes us cringe with regret.  We have all lied about something at some point, and we all have all of that hanging over our heads at all times and the stress of it has made us into who we are presenting to the public today.  Baggage.  Emotional baggage.  I have a theory about this.  In life, we start out with no property, no emotional baggage.  As we age, we accumulate a bag, a small one.  Eventually that bag turns into a suitcase and later still, that suitcase turns into a forty piece luggage set that you carry with you everywhere.  We cannot let go of our past mistakes.  We will carry that baggage with us everywhere until our death.  That's not my theory, though.  My theory is this:  If you get married young, the other person will have less emotional baggage for you to have to deal with.  The older you get, the more emotional baggage and the less likely you'll be to get past it all.  Like going on vacation, it's a lot easier to travel with two bags than it is with three. You see where I'm going here.  The theory is only a theory so unbunch those panties!  It's simply an idea I've had about people and relationships for a while and there's no way to prove its accuracy.  There's WAY too many variables for a controlled experiment to occur.  But know this simple lesson.  Everyone is dealing with a personal past and it shapes who we are today.  It is the reason that someone has trust issues.  It is the reason someone adjusts the rear view mirror every time they get behind the wheel and it's the reason someone is doesn't take no for an answer.  It is trivial, and it is gigantic.  It doesn't matter how small or big, it is the reason we are who we are.

4.  Do things you don't want to do.  Obviously, I'm not talking about killing someone or anything even remotely harmful or illegal.  All I'm saying is to get out of your comfort zone from time to time.  I don't know many people that like doing things that they're not already comfortable with.  It is awkward, uncomfortable, humiliating, maybe.  You cannot do something confidently until you've had practice at it, or at least have done it a couple of times.   We don't like feeling unsure.  I get it.  We don't like that we might look foolish.  But really, who cares all that much if you look foolish?  Just you, that's who.  I made a decision a while back to just charge in and try it.  If there's something I haven't done before, I refuse to go in meekly or timidly.  I will either surprise myself and do whatever it is well, or I will fail miserably and look like the biggest fool ever.  And I have decided to be okay with the latter.  I'm already dragging a few tons of emotional baggage around anyway, load me up.  I have found, and I guess here's the real lesson behind the scene, is that when I charge into things head on like that, and even when I aggressively fail, my emotional baggage stays the same size.  It's a mental preemptive choice, to accept that I might fail, and that if I do, to take it in stride.  

5.  Be honest, and give bad news.  No one I know enjoys having to give bad news.  In fact, most people try to dodge it at all costs.  It's difficult to do and emotionally painful, but do it anyways.  Most people will be surprised by your honesty.  Don't mistake what I'm trying to say though.  Don't seek out bad news just so you can inflict an emotional breakdown on someone.  That is ethically defunct, and mean for no good reason.  But if you must give someone bad news, don't avoid it.  On top of that, it has been my experience that the sooner the bad news is delivered, the easier it is.  In counterpoint, the longer you avoid it, the harder it becomes.  Get it out of the way so it's not sitting heavily on your shoulders for any length of time and so that whoever is going to receive the bad news can begin to accept whatever it is and move on from it.  

     I have witnessed a lot of people pass the buck when it comes to bad news.  The buck stops here!  People appreciate the honesty in most cases.  And even when they aren't gracious enough to not take it out on the messenger, well at least you're not carrying that burden around any longer.  In all cases, it is necessary to deliver the news with a certain level of tact.  I fear a misinterpretation on this one.

     Five steps to major life lessons in 36 years of life.  I'm not perfect by any stretch, and often it is a struggle to remember even simple lessons I've learned in life.  For some, I'm doomed to repeat for a long time to come.  For others, I have them mastered.  We make mistakes to learn, but when the mistakes get made, we also have to be in the right frame of mind to receive it as a lesson, and that may be the most difficult lesson of all.

     

Choose

There are thirty people in a room.  There are explosives tied to these thirty people.  There is a madman,  in a remote location with his finger on the detonator, and he is waiting for you to make a decision.  You say the word, and he will push the button, annihilating those thirty people.  But also, in his other hand is another button that he is just as willing to push.  All you have to do is tell him which one.  This other button can remotely detonate a different location, on the other side of town.  This other room has a single person in it.  Which button do you tell him to push?  There are no other choices.  He is going to press one with or without you telling him which one.  If you do decide to tell him which one to push, he will comply with your wishes, but no matter what, he is going to push one.

We now arrive at a moral dilemma.  How could we possibly choose someone to die?  Who are we to play God?  Well, the obvious choice is to save the thirty people by losing the one, right?  Could you really tell this madman, "Yes, go ahead and kill the guy."  Congratulations, you just saved thirty people!  But, conversely, you will have to live with the fact that you are responsible for someone's death.  You may justify it to yourself because of the thirty you saved.  

Let's think about this again, but with a minor change.  Imagine the one person alone in room number two is a loved one.  A spouse, a child, mother, father, whatever.  Someone you love very deeply.  Now what?  Still save the thirty people?  

For a while, I thought about it and decided, "Nope!  I will not make the call.  I will let this lunatic with the two buttons decide which one to press and then I can live on, conscience clear of any wrong doing because it was not me who decided that someone should die.  Of course!," I said to myself.  "Well played.  I guessed the correct answer, ethics in tact."  But the more I thought about, the less sure I was.  What about this:  the madman will press both buttons if you don't come to a decision.  This puts a kink in the idea that not deciding is a morally sound choice.  More people die if you don't tell him which to press.

The point I guess I'm trying to make, albeit in a non-intuitive way, is that sometimes we are forced to choose the lesser of two evils.  When no choice is a good choice, at least maybe one could be a better choice.  We often meander through life in this way, making acceptable choices given a buffet of choices, some good, some bad.  Then, as in a game of chess, we sacrifice a good choice for a bad one, because sometimes the risk of a bad choice is acceptable.  Just like sacrificing a pawn to get in a position to take a better piece, a rook, perhaps.

Our goal, in life, is to make good choices more often than bad, and to delineate the lesser of two evils and choose that one, and to weigh the consequences of a bad choice and decide if it is worth making.  Most people, I would guess, make decent choices.  But I wonder, too, what makes a choice decent?  If I benefit from a choice, is it then a good choice?  Ideally, and I'm really only postulating since I just don't know what the right answer really is, or if there even IS one, a person should settle on a choice that benefits one's self while not infringing on someone else's ability to make good choices.

I would like to think of this as the meaning of life:  to be faced with a cavalcade of choices and always try to choose either the best ethical option or the lesser of evils.  Depending on your particular religious belief, if we are to be judged upon death, those choices become extremely important--in fact, it is what we are being judged against.  And even though it's a BIG no-no, let's face it, we judge the hell out of others too.  How people view you is wholly based on what choices you have made and how predictable you will be when you are confronted with a future decision.  When we feel that we can predict, with some level of accuracy, what someone else's choice in a given matter will be, we feel like we know them.  We are comfortable with them.  Our entire life is defined by the choices we make, is what I guess I'm saying.  And we choose to be close with people that would make similar choices.

When they are cornered and must make the best choice among bad options, it is then that we see a person's mettle, it is then that a leader can be born, or a will can be shattered.  Decisions can be tough sometimes, and hindsight can always force someone to second guess, no matter the choice.

So the clock is ticking.  Choose wisely.  Look at the big picture and never, under ANY circumstances, get into a situation where you must decide who gets blown up.