Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Attitude is everything. As I near my 50th year, this truism is becoming more and more apparent. Maybe other folx “get it” a lot sooner, and good for them, but it’s taken me awhile to get there. How we show up matters.
I remember sitting in Mrs. Groves’ algebra class back in high school some thirty years ago thinking to myself, “what the hell am I gonna use this stuff for? Math isn’t who I am. This stuff doesn’t matter.” See, while that level of math didn’t necessarily matter to someone pursuing a clerical career, how I approached things I didn’t want to do DID matter.
Spoiled, cis-male, privileged, only child… in the South. That was me. In other words, I was in the ideal position to take full advantage of my situation and fully develop my shitty attitude, and it’s that well-honed shitty attitude with which I did most things. I was my own worst enemy. Why?
I was the embodiment of my ego, not my virtue.
How I handled the things I didn’t want to do affected how I did the things I DID want to do. Not that I was complaining and acting like a jerk about things, but that attitude didn’t just turn off when I was getting my way. Even getting my way came with attitude… entitlement, know-it-all thinking, and overly-critical commentary.
“Like an asshole” became how I did anything.
So, yeah… decades later, I can sit here and write that it’s crucial to do everything with excellence, no matter what it is. Then, you’ll train yourself to do anything with excellence. However, when I was in the middle of it, drowning in attitude, I wasn’t even aware I was going under…
… but you don’t have to drown, too.
Consider this a social, philosophical life preserver.
(See y’all tomorrow)
I remember sitting in Mrs. Groves’ algebra class back in high school some thirty years ago thinking to myself, “what the hell am I gonna use this stuff for? Math isn’t who I am. This stuff doesn’t matter.” See, while that level of math didn’t necessarily matter to someone pursuing a clerical career, how I approached things I didn’t want to do DID matter.
Spoiled, cis-male, privileged, only child… in the South. That was me. In other words, I was in the ideal position to take full advantage of my situation and fully develop my shitty attitude, and it’s that well-honed shitty attitude with which I did most things. I was my own worst enemy. Why?
I was the embodiment of my ego, not my virtue.
How I handled the things I didn’t want to do affected how I did the things I DID want to do. Not that I was complaining and acting like a jerk about things, but that attitude didn’t just turn off when I was getting my way. Even getting my way came with attitude… entitlement, know-it-all thinking, and overly-critical commentary.
“Like an asshole” became how I did anything.
So, yeah… decades later, I can sit here and write that it’s crucial to do everything with excellence, no matter what it is. Then, you’ll train yourself to do anything with excellence. However, when I was in the middle of it, drowning in attitude, I wasn’t even aware I was going under…
… but you don’t have to drown, too.
Consider this a social, philosophical life preserver.
(See y’all tomorrow)
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