Many times in our lives, both as children and as adults, we find
ourselves in situations where we are not sure why the bad thing that has
happened to us has happened. Often times, when we are at a loss for a logical
explanation, we will simply say that “they” didn’t want us to succeed. However,
what we need to ask ourselves is “they” really who we think it is.
I knew a young lady some years ago who was a very good
worker with really good skills in her chosen profession. Whatever the job was
that she was given, she could do the work expertly and quickly, but this was
her problem. She would often be released from positions, but whenever she was
questioned about her terminations; her answer would always be “they don’t like
me on that job”. When I would ask her who “they” was, she would say “everybody
on the job”, meaning the bosses, her co-workers and everyone else. I would try
to explain that it was unlikely that everyone at the company disliked her personally,
and the reality of the situation would often be much different.
After discussing the situation with her, I would discover
that being highly skilled would allow her to complete her assigned work very
quickly. However, once she was done with her work, she would sit at her desk
with nothing to do until quitting time. When her supervisors would ask why she
was not working, she would explain that she had finished her work and that no
one has assigned her any new work. When the supervisors would ask why she hadn’t
asked her co-workers if they needed help with their work, she usually didn’t
have an answer, and it would be this lack of initiative that would lead to her
dismissal. The point of this is that before we blame “they”, we need to figure
out what, if any, part we might have played on our own trouble.
My children have come to learn that no matter what happens
in their lives, there is almost always a cause and effect, meaning that
something probably happened that caused that other thing to happen. If one
child is crying and is running to me to tell me that the other child has hit
him or her, I will ask the child who was hit what happened just before they
were hit. Sometimes, after taking the events in reverse order, through several
exchanges, the person who was hit actually began the chain of events that ended
with the child being hit by the other child. While the hitting child will be
disciplined for resorting to violence to resolve a conflict, the child who was
hit will be educated with regards to the fact that something that they did
eventually led to them being hit, and that it is not just a situation of the
other child being mean to them.
What we as people have to do, before we claim that no one
wants to hire us because they don’t like us, or because of our race or gender,
we should look at ourselves. Before we claim that society is holding us back,
we should look at ourselves. Maybe we have a Twitter account or a Facebook account
that has disturbing information on it. Maybe our previous employer intimated
that we didn’t work very hard. Maybe we have an arrest for theft, and now an employer
that has an opening for someone to handle money doesn’t trust us to be honest. In
short, there might be things about us that are keeping us from succeeding or
advancing.
What I have told my children is that in some instances, the “they”
that is causing the problem is actually us. The person that is holding us back
could be us. We could actually be in our own way, but we are blaming “they”
because we do not want to admit that we are not doing enough to help ourselves.
Unfortunately, before we blame “they”,
we have to examine the situation, and look at all of the events that led to the
happening that we are upset over, because we might find out that the “they”
that is in our way is actually “us”.
No comments:
Post a Comment