What’s this all about?
Emotional maturity; I’m still a kid.
Physical maturity; I’m suddenly old.
I once participated with a concern that would give out golden straight edges (rulers) to new colleagues on their first day. There was some phrase of the culture regarding abrasive behavior and the relative lacking that sort of behavior. When I was learning about the concern, I fell in love with that image. You know, the golden rule?
They were full of crap. There was nothing relative about them.
After my experience, rather than throw that ruler in the garbage, I gave it to a secretary at my university who collected SWAG. Due to the intangible nature of the value of that object, she didn’t have one. It was a unique item to her collection of swaggy uniqueness that reflected our industry. Proving no good deed goes unpunished, she remarked she hoped I didn’t do anything to deserve my lacking sympathy toward that golden ruler.
I lied and said I didn’t. But in any given day we’re all given gifts we don’t deserve.
Don’t put people, places, or things on pedestals.
Courtesy is love in action.
That’s the synopsis. Primary sources for inspiration of this post are at the bottom of this thread. If you’re intrigued, read on.
Thank you for reading.
Please give me the opportunity to be wrong. I’m looking for your help to provide feedback, guidance, and support. Please let me know how this engages you. You can do a thing. I can do a thing. Together we can do great things. Please consider subscribing, liking, sharing, tweeting, texting, forwarding, printing, snail mail, & airborne leaflet propaganda. It just needs to catch the Forward Flu (go viral).
Scroll up or all the way down for the love, subscribe and share options. I’m trying to trigger (prompt) you to do something.
You’ll show me by not “liking” this post or responding. I like your posts and your business pages I’ll likely never patronize your company. But still, you have some support. Where is the love?
The Good stuff:
You know how many writing courses are required at that big reputable law school down the road (points to Ann Arbor)? One! And it shows!
Michael Talbot, Chief judge, Michigan Court of Appeals. (Circa winter 2015, 16, 17?)(I can’t remember).
http://legalnews.com/oakland/1458004/
https://ballotpedia.org/Michael_Talbot
Ouch. The nudge from the judge. Don’t take him too seriously he did flunk Latin after all.
I think he was establishing a dissatisfaction with his expectation of education in his profession. I can relate. Accounting was once considered the priesthood of the business profession. That’s a loaded statement, but in essence our job is to ensure reliability.
His profession underlies my profession. Since before Moses, rules have been tantamount to society. They’re an intangible foundation. The tangible results in maintaining possession of life or property or its surrender.
Constant.
Pick one.
For our society consistency revolves around law. That encourages behavior. But the law isn’t going to stop anyone from doing anything. The law will provide consequences. The common element to both those things: human connection.
I’d like to go to Duke. The Harvard of the South.
Part of it is my ego. But the part that had me believing it may be a path worth pursuing was the professional skeptic who values efficiency. Not just monetarily but chronologically as well. The part of me that had me believing it is even possible is faith.
Because it’s there.
Stay in your raisin’.
No, not the Californian kind. The Appalachian kind. You know, the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s? Live life in accordance to how you were raised is what it means. Your raising.
Michigan is such an interesting place because I like to think for a time it was the state that was the shining city on a hill so many people immigrated to nationally and internationally. It’s a melting pot within a melting pot. I learn so many examples from people of different backgrounds and heritage. The next example of a US melting pot after Michigan would be the Californian kind.
But interesting perspective. Michigan is primed for the next economic boom.
Enterprise considerations that look at locations of Dollar Stores could result in tangible gains.
Industries lacking employees should consider partnering with construction, moving, and real estate firms to capitalize on a friendly tax environment, lower payroll, and inexpensive real estate when compared with other technical, educational, industrial, logistical, and natural hubs. Michigan is one of a kind.
Mobile laundromats. The Uber of laundry is a potential business opportunity.
Love.
Courtesy.
I stood a girl up. On a date. Not the romantic kind. The professional kind.
We had a different opinion on the style of email communication. I’m too wordy, and she didn’t have time to “flower” up her message to me.
Man did that piss me off.
Thank God Twitter, if around , there was no @realSeanDowd. My Facebook presence was so inconsequential (as it is today) that my activity on it was pure self-reflection with a lot of personal self-satisfaction. This is the first influence post of the following interaction I describe.
I’m sharing this story with profound remorse. Remorse means I will actively consider this lesson and work to change my behavior.
I respect this lady. As I write this, I have no idea where she is. She was a young mother when we collaborated and was working through college to better herself. I was indifferent to her at the time.
Because I got so bent out of shape on her feedback to my feedback, I failed to update her that the team would not be at the previously agreed upon location and time of our service project to walk shelter dogs at an adoption event.
Guilt by omission.
I didn’t tell her. Neither did anyone else.
She showed up to the event one rainy Saturday morning. She called me. It wasn’t explicit but I could hear an underlying message. She was crying, her daughter was crying. As a parent I can understand the implications of the lesson I had unintentionally taught that day.
Human flesh will fail you.
Expectation.
Commitment.
I wouldn’t have liked it if someone did that to me. If someone did that to me and it impacted my child? Boy would I need some Yoga.
I don’t know how I apologized, or even if I did. I think knowing I was party to something that was so very opposite of loving, I might have said sorry. But there were no tangible consequences.
We weren’t friendly. The project had been rescheduled. The goal progress was temporarily postponed.
But, there is a picture of the two of us on a sunny spring Saturday. We hold two dogs by leashes. We’re smiling. A paradox? Two fallible humans conducting service for two nearly perfect examples of unconscious love.
I missed out on a friendship. Someone who could share how she did it. Just because she’s a mother and I’m a father doesn’t mean I can’t learn from her. At the very least she could be available as a friend if I were to find myself in the uncomfortable position of crying.
For a long time, it’s been hard for me to cry with much emphasis. Even with sufficient reason.
The first time I cried hard in a while was recent. I was reporting a problem, and someone cut me off in the middle of my report. Something I had spent a lot of effort and emotion on was being called out and rightly cited as contradictory to achieving my most important goal.
Imagine a priest writing about you in a report that you don’t have a presence in God, and this statement is meant as a means of preventing you from attaining your goal.
That priest also had some profane questions for me during a “talk.” But he knew I was full of crap and was probably just thinking that and he was evaluating me to make sure. He could have paid me the courtesy of being loyal to the absent and provided his feedback face to face.
But he didn’t. And I had to deal with that for a long time.
Human flesh will fail you. Even a tangible ambassador of forgiveness.
This recent interaction that caused me to cry heavily wasn’t the feedback of a priest. He is more of a personal life coach. I respect him. We are members of an organization that promotes personal discovery.
I was mainly offended because I thought he might not have been listening to me. We were in a conference call with several other people. So it was public and there was no room left for interpretation.
He didn’t fail me.
He saw through my denial.
D - on’t
E - ven
N - otice
I
A - m
L - ying
In retrospect, it felt good to cry. For the first time in 21 years since the death of my Nana. Who, like Duke University was from the triangle region of North Carolina, I cried. I let out a lot of pent-up emotion.
Then I walked upstairs past my sleeping wife and nearly perfect children and went to bed.
I didn’t take out my frustration on anyone or anything the subsequent days physically, verbally, visually, or audibly. If anything, I changed gears and was making more progress than ever and tried to walk the talk.
Communication is hard.
Context is important.
Humility is essential.
Courtesy is love in action.
If anyone is looking to hire someone, please let me know. I have an accounting colleague in my network with a similar background to mine who is currently in the market for a great opportunity. I would like to help pay her the compliment of having options. Please message me if you would like to network with her!
Thank you for reading.
Please give me the opportunity to be wrong. I’m looking for your help to provide feedback, guidance and support. Please let me know how this engages you. You can do a thing. I can do a thing. Together we can do great things. Please consider subscribing, liking, sharing, tweeting, texting, forwarding, printing, snail mail, & airborne leaflet propaganda. It just needs to catch the Forward Flu (go viral).
Scroll up or all the way down for the love, subscribe and share options. I’m trying to trigger (prompt) you to do something.
Desktop:
Most of this work was conducted on my iPhone. When I couldn’t sleep. I probably should get that checked out. Let’s see if I can still perform and do this too.
Goal for publish: Blog, podcast. Friday evening.
Currently reading: Love, the Greatest Thing in the World
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1246340.Love_the_Greatest_Thing_in_the_World
Currently listening: The Space Between – Dave Matthews Band
Currently viewing: Love Actually (Many stars)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314331/
Have it your way. How does he say it? Whopper with pickles, no tomato, heavy onion cut in half? That’s a whopper of a story. Perhaps you’ve heard it.
God, guns, Texas and bow ties. Prejudice is stupid.
Don’t call me Dowd.
Balance. Scales. Linear.
Orbits. Satellites. Nonlinear.
The beauty of surprise. Feel like a kid again.
Perception- an expectation visualized.
The greatest of these is love.
Love is patient. Love is pure.
Love is courteous.
Don’t put people, places, or things on pedestals.
“Being a perfectionist isn’t easy. I can say so and so is important to me and if my actions don’t line up to that I’m a liar! If I do these things deliberately I would be evil. If I do them unconsciously, I’m sick. Please note the difference. Be kind to yourself and others.” - Tom B
Blogs are the new letters?
Text messaging. And tweeting. Short burst of messaging that reflects the attitude and emotions of the sender and the receiver. Driven by perception (the visualization of an expectation).
What’s important you won’t hear about, and what’s not important will be crammed down your throat.
I’m confused, I’m concerned, I was just kidding. Jeeze, take a joke.
Stand up comedy routines are for the comedy club. Not the workplace.
A lot of what I say is funny. But if it’s the truth then it’s not necessarily funny, it’s tragic.
Flowery emails. Missed connection. My action impacted her daughter. Her child who just wanted to walk some dogs. Look her up.
All media works us over.
Much of media is designed to prompt (trigger) you to a response. Living in that 24/7, it’s curious to see how we can be prompted by friends and families to do something without even thinking about it.
Values and Goals.
Collaborate.
Win/ Win or No Deal
The message from the person is in the black ink. The message from someone else is in the white space in between.
We’re all the same. We’re all different.
Equality & Anthropology
We live in different worlds. Do we want to live in the same one together, or do we want to live separate?
Link the Wolverines State
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/343391.Michigan
You’ll show me by not “liking” this post or responding. I like your posts and your business pages that I’ll likely never patronize or completely inappropriate. But still, you have some support. Where is the love?
If anyone is looking to hire someone, please let me know. I have an accounting colleague in my network with a similar background to mine who is currently in the market for a great opportunity. I would like to help pay her the compliment of having options. Please message me if you would like to network with her!
Thank you for reading.
Please give me the opportunity to be wrong. I’m looking for your help to provide feedback, guidance and support. Please let me know how this engages you. You can do a thing. I can do a thing. Together we can do great things. Please consider subscribing, liking, sharing, tweeting, texting, forwarding, printing, snail mail, & airborne leaflet propaganda. It just needs to catch the Forward Flu (go viral).
Scroll up or all the way down for the love, subscribe and share options. I’m trying to trigger (prompt) you to do something.
Sean Dowd, February 25, 2022
Golden Rules, Golden Rulers, and Golden Calves