Hello hello,
I recently completed this program at work that included a bunch of sessions with a leadership coach (#privilege). This poor guy… can you imagine dealing me with?! He deserves an extra large bonus this year. Our sessions would start with a very manageable topic, and I’d quickly turn them into personal therapy sessions followed by an expansive look at the broader evolution of humanity and our capacity to operate in this advanced society with our rudimentary hardware (aka our brains). Give me a micro problem, and I guarantee I can find you a systemic root cause in no time!
Anyway, I did have one really pertinent breakthrough during this process. I need to better manage the healthy tension between trying to remain likeable while also being efficient in the workplace. This is a budding realization that requires much more exploration! Luckily for that poor guy, he’s off the hook, and I’m now on my own. #growthisuncomfortable
Speaking of likeability (??)… I cannot stop thinking about manners and traditions. Like – what are manners? I’m not talking about general courtesy (like saying please and thank you). I’m talking about capital M Manners…. why can’t we put our elbows on the table or eat with certain forks for certain courses or eat with our mouths open? I heard a very interesting conversation about manners on a podcast recently that really resonated. The explanation was that these ‘manners’ evolved from England a long time ago and were used to differentiate wealthy white people from the rest of the world. And by adhering to these arbitrary rules for etiquette, the elites were able to ‘other’ themselves from people of color and white working class folks. Once they could intellectualize this distinction, they could stomach the concept of slavery. It makes so much sense. Who decided these crazy ways of operating were the ‘right’ ways?! If you travel anywhere else in the world, you see a completely different set of ‘manners’. Maybe this is totally obvious to everyone, but I now feel like putting my elbows on the table as an act of quiet resistance 😉
And what is tradition? Isn’t ‘tradition’ just picking an arbitrary point in time and saying “this is the way we do things” which leaves no room for growth or change? Is tradition a way to excuse inexcusable past behavior? To evolve, do we have to balk at tradition? It feels like a blanket concept to preserve a moment in time. It’s so human to want to keep things how we like them! I’m all for learning from history and understanding what happened in the past as a way to inform where we should go in the future. But, that feels very different – that’s an academic pursuit as a means to ensure we’re not repeating catastrophic mistakes. Tradition feels like it’s linked to morality. That it’s a preservation of the ‘good’ way and any sort of change is veering off course. Obviously, every tradition is not created equal – it’s a spectrum from innocuous to malicious. Interestingly – I actually feel guilty that I’m not establishing enough traditions with my kids… Is that innate? learned?
If nothing else, this thought experiment/rabbit hole has confirmed I lean toward the progressive mindset (#duh). It makes me want to explore more. Are there facets of manners and traditions that I’m missing? It also confirms that everything we do, think, and believe is completely made up. What’s the difference between reality and fiction? #itsallfiction
Talk soon,
Jessica