Who are we kidding?

Who are we kidding?

This morning I was inspired by death.  There was an article about a young girl – a teenager who lived near Toronto who hanged herself after taking drugs.  The drugs were meant to deal with “depression” – a diagnosed condition being treated by a doctor.  Yet it is clear from the outcome that her treatment only dealt with the symptoms, not the causes of the depression.  What is depression?  Along with a variety of geological, economic, climactic and other uses for the word I found (in Google’s online definition):

• a mental state characterized by a pessimistic sense of inadequacy and a despondent lack of activity
• sad feelings of gloom and inadequacy

And I asked myself if a drug can possibly deal with these.  Of course not.  Mental states are brought on by the mind, not by chemicals.  We can all smile when only thinking about something that makes us happy, or we can move ourselves to tear by thinking of something sad.  Actors do it all the time to give us those tears on screen.  Sad feelings, indeed feelings of any sort, are brought on by the mind judging the body’s reactions to events it perceives.  All of this is the mind’s doing.  Drugs can only alter our ability to perceive, not what we perceive.

Doctors prescribe drugs all the time.  But do they deal with problems or symptoms?  Even drugs that help with clogged arteries – they may deal with the clogging, but they don’t deal with the source of the clogging – often an unhealthy life style.

OK – this is an asset management website.  Why is this relevant here?  We are often moved to solve “apparent problems” – realy the symptoms of some deeper underlying problem.  Underlying most of our problems are deeper issues just presenting themselves for solution.  They present themselves through lesser yet more immediately evident problems on the surface.  And our corporate culture, indeed our entire western civilization, seems to value the short term fixes over the longer term solutions.  We seem to be afraid to dig deeper and really deal with the deep underlying issues.  And that applies in our businesses as well as in our lives.  That young lady who took her life would very likely have been far better served to dig deeper into the causes of her depression rather than taking a drug to hide it.  She got the short term fix and the long term sentence.

What is it about our consciousness that takes us down that short term path to a quick fix that only hides the real problems?  Perhaps we just don’t love ourselves. Oh, we say we do, but do we really.  Did that young lady really love herself.  Did her family really love her?  Did her doctor really love her and her family?  Did he / she have a real love of helping, or only creating an illusion of helping?

And that happens in our businesses too.  Perhaps we don’t really love what we are doing as a business.  We may love our work (our job) within that context of the business, but do we really love the business?  Do we see the deeper contribution we are making to society, to humanity by doing our job?  Just as your heart is a part of supporting what you choose to do with your live, you are doing something in your business that contributes to whatever the business chooses.  That business is, after all, just a collection of individual people all choosing something together.  If we do see that deeper contribution, then are we inspired by it?  Do we really love it?  If not, are we really loving ourselves by being there and doing it?

Tough questions to ask and tough questions to answer.  Look at the implications.  You’ve just read those questions and come up with quick answers.  Don’t go back and over think this.  What are you going to do now, if you got an answer that truthfully reveals that you are not doing what is most loving for yourself?  Continue to do it?  Why?  Because you have a family to support?  We are masters at justifying what we choose after the fact.  Why not choose to love yourself first?  It starts there.  That simple choice will open you up to further answers that are more loving to yourself.  Being conscious of your choices is like the solution to a problem – a large part of the solution is in merely identifying the problem.  Then we are open to a solutioon.  And why not being with a choice to find a loving solution?

This applies at work too.  Let’s say we answer the above questions with “yes”.  We are inspired by what we do and the contribution we make at our work.  It is meaningful.  Terrific.  Yet you have problems at work – equipment that continually breaks down.  Underlying the technical problems are people problems.  Perhaps problems with the design, the installation, the quality of parts used, the rush to put it back into service the last time it broke down…  These are all people problems.  And underlying those are deeper systemic problems in the business.  Repeated problems are a chronic condition of the business, not just the equipment.  You can not solve these with the industrial equivalent of a drug – the rapid repair.  You are only making it go away for a short while.  It’s time to dig deeper.

Can our businesses make that leap?  Can they encourage long term solutions and digging deeper into the tough issues that are not amenable to short term fixes?  My answer is “yes”.  But it will take a shift in consciousness on the part of all of us as individuals.  As each one of us shifts our consciousness, others around us will notice.

I’ll use myself as an example.  If you have read this far and if this has touched you in some way.  I’ve started that shift in those around me.  I’d apprecaite it if you would just let me know that you felt something here.  With your help that can spread.  You have influence over those around you.  Collectively, our consciousness can shift to one that is truly loving to the self and that will spill over into our families and loved ones, our workplace and companies, eventually into all of society.

Love, Jim