No charmed life but I clean up good...

I grew up in a family that was living from day to day off of an income level that would have been considered just above "poverty." But that did not stop my parents from holding my siblings and I accountable to make something of ourselves. This included knowing God (dealing with my spirit first), being clean and having manners (i.e., knowing how to show respect for myself and for others), learning to get along with my family members (i.e., treating each other well and showing love for one another), and getting an education -- almost exactly in that order.

Fast forward years later, as I interact with a diverse group of co-workers and hear their tales of growing up and the richness of the experiences some of them have had, from time-to-time the temptation is too great for me to NOT pull out my invisible checklist card and compare my childhood with theirs. I didn't learn how to swim when I was young. I didn't participate in the Girls' Scouts, etc. And the list could go on.

The one good thing about being honest with yourself and not putting on airs about who you are (your past) is that it makes it easier for you to shake off that awful self-pitying feeling when it does happen to arise. You've arrived at the place at which you currently are through a very specific series of life events. And, though you may have had little to do with choosing most of them, they chose you -- and you survived. You have to believe that you survived your life up until this point FOR A REASON. Once you find that reason, however difficult that task may have been, then the real work begins!

Take for example the process of buying a new house -- rather a pre-existing house that is "new" to you and perhaps your family. If you think things are going to be neat when you're looking to make renovations or upgrades to your house, you haven't been paying attention to the not-so-subtle messages that life has been trying to send you about how change happens. Making improvements - be it personal or physical or professional or anything else - is like painting your rooms in your house, while still staying in it. Everything gets turned upside down, gets rearranged in a messy sort of cluttered way. Not at all how we want things to look but you keep telling yourself that the house is going to look great once they all -- yes, all -- get done.

Similarly, you have to accept that no matter how you wish to, you will never get back the years that you've already spent and which are in the past. You can't make up for lost time by learning everything that you think you could've know had you been a child prodigy. There was a time for that, perhaps, and it turned out that you were not a child prodigy. It's okay. Forgive yourself for not being something that you were not in the first place.

What does all of this have to do with the notion of professional growth and becoming a successful individual in the marketplace? There is a lesson in all this. And it simply is this: Acceptance of your limitations is essential to your growth. On a really practical note, once you know what you know, you'll have a clear starting point from which to climb upwards. Learn at your pace. Then when something comes along requiring skills beyond what you have, you can more quickly recognize those situations and readjust and summon individuals or external sources of knowledge that can help you address that particular issue. The point is to lose the "chip on your shoulder." Life can disappoint you (as it does for most of us), but you don't need to let that disappointment create an emotional handicap that makes you paranoid and self-doubting of your abilities now, at this time in your life. You can learn what you need to; and what you don't need to or don't have the time to learn, well, that's where networking and learning to work with your colleagues and teammates come in at.

Foster your ability to stop apologizing for circumstances beyond your control and grow at your own pace. You'll be surprised where your path may lead you.

Engaging with the mundane

Amidst today's complex business environment, the formula for staying motivated to do good work remains the elusive golden chalice which most employees and middle managers pursue. We spend years in pursuit of just the right conditions to create the ideal work environment. Everyone pursues it but most are not necessarily willing to allow their will to "die" in order to attain it. Death, in this instance, does not refer to a physical event, but rather a philosophical, even metaphysical occurrence. Unless a manager is willing to think and act outside of his or her own comfort zone and put the interests of the employee, albeit subordinate, above his or her own immediate desires, the subject of one's attention will seldom experience the personal nirvana needed to push them through and upward to a higher level of performance and, most importantly, productivity.

Allow me to elaborate. Isn't it interesting that all those many years ago, while we were coming to understand what the Industrial Revolution really did for the worker and how it came to impact American work, as it were, we remain dubious of how to interact with one another in the basic exchange of goods or services? Instead, rather, we continue to place value on how to dominate one another, to come out on top of the exchange. Perhaps, in fact, the key is not so much in procuring the perfect position after all. Perhaps the key is in understanding one's position and assessing whether or not he or she has the capability to do anything to contribute to the body of work in said area. PhDs and the like do it, and make a living, albeit usually a modest one, revisiting basic premises and massaging their characteristics and traits to ascertain what could possibly be done better. How can we reduce symptoms associated with the flu; what is the most efficient way to deliver energy to a certain type of matter; how can we arrest the growth of cancerous cells without killing the host? These are all questions that warrant our preponderance and our attention; how much more important then would it be for us to ask similar questions regarding those seemingly mundane tasks we encounter on a daily basis?

In fact, the most ingenious of us, the most resourceful of individuals engage in this level of discourse, i.e., how can we build a better mouse trap, or what app can we develop that can make being "busy" a little bit easier? We call these individuals "entrepreneurs" and we call what they do "disruptors." These are seemingly simple improvements in how we approach doing something very mundane that changes how we do things so fundamentally that it redefines the industry landscape altogether. These entrepreneurs, by vocation, inhabit a sacred space that is often subject to social scrutiny and both private and public jeers. Nevertheless, every now and again one's persistence pays off; we've heard of countless accounts of inventors, scientists, serial entrepreneurs who kept at what they were passionate about, remained steady on course, and reaped the benefits of their labors.

We keep it real. We stay true to our roots, as the saying goes, and hope that our continuous circles will intersect at the heart of the elusive "issue," the problem that we are destined to fix. So if for no other reason than belief that hard work should never be deemed a waste of time, it's important that we continue to keep up our meager efforts, ever working on our cog in the wheel. If you consider yourself entrepreneurial and full of a lot of great ideas, also consider yourself in good company. In fact, embrace the mundane: It's just practice for the next big thing getting ready to happen... 

The American Dream as an Economic Aspiration

If you ask most people about what the American Dream means to them, they will usually tell you that they associate it with certain things:
- white picket fences
- gated community
- nice size house in the suburbs
- owning a small business
- being able to take care of  his or her family/or able to send children to college

Another commonality of this ideal, is the idea that one has a kind of self-direction, and autonomy that is highly-valued and even coveted by most.

Not surprisingly, though, few of us ever reach the happiness we say we seek - even after we begin gradually accumulating these things or achieve the status that we pursue. I am writing this even as I reflect upon having done a good deed for someone. It just so happens that the good deed required that I use money to effect its "goodness."  Oh, and did I mention that I, too, seek to achieve all these levels of self-fulfillment?

I woke up in the middle of the night with a miniature panic attack (for lack of a better term to use), as I pondered briefly what I had actually done. With credit cards at balances that I did not find ideal for my purposes, and no definite prospects for additional streams of funds, I questioned the wisdom of putting myself out there, becoming so vulnerable to uncertainty by my act of kindness. Was there actual value in my creating a situation of more fiscal difficulty in order to offset someone else's? And, more importantly, was it fair for me to do this to myself?

Perhaps the problem for me has nothing to do with whether or not I am convinced of the correctness of the act of helping someone with less money than I, but rather the problem is the lack of surplus after I have given. We operate on the premise that we are blessed when we give; we reap what we sow and if we sow good works, good things will come back to us. We are more than generous to give to telethons when called upon to run to help the most recent victims of natural tragedies, rescue orphans from the awful grasps of poverty -- we even proudly support efforts to help spare the lives of countless stray cats and dogs rescued by and living in shelters. Why, because we know it is the right thing to do.

Being American is the epitome of what we believe: that is, that doing good works is the right thing to do when you see someone else in trouble, especially the children and the elderly. We open up our hearts, our wallets and GIVE because that is what keeps our society going: the generosity of strangers. Secret Santa, private donors and anonymous gift patrons, Good Samaritans - they all have different names but they all are the same in essence and serve a similar purpose. They remind us of our responsibility to take care of one another. No matter ones situation, we GIVE. In order to give, yes, you must have money. But even if you don't have money, you are riddled with debt, the mandate is the same: when you see a need, you GIVE. The only thing is in the latter situation you are expected to exercise some version of faith that your efforts will do good and consequently you will also reap the benefits of your generosity because of the biblical law of reciprocity.

Is this foolish? Some may say so, but living in a world filled with superstitions and an affinity towards gambling and chance, is it really that bad that of all the things one can believe in, a people would choose to believe in generosity of heart? Generosity of heart transcends finances; it cancels the meaning of the number of zeros in ones bank account, and instead places great value on one's intention. It reminds us all that even as Freedom is purchased at a great cost, our realization of the American Dream is not to squander our riches on ourselves. Rather it is to fulfill the dreams and aspirations of our forefathers and mothers to create a better world by helping to fill in the gaps by lending a helping hand whenever at all we are able to.

So, let's keep doing well, creating businesses to employ the masses, making great scientific discoveries to help cure the diseases of the world, protecting those who cannot protect themselves. By so doing we sustain and maintain our society and, yes, make the world a little bit better than how we found it.