You Learn What You Work

I love the adage, "You learn what you live" which is based on an old poem titled Children Learn What They Live by Dorothy Law Nolte.  ("If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn....if a child lives with acceptance, he learns to love....")  I use it to explain behavior all of the time, and now I may be ready to adapt and apply this adage to occupations as well.  In other words, you learn what you work.

I recently had dinner with a former professional colleague from many years ago.  We worked together at a large, multi-national insurance company in the 1980's and 1990's, and while neither of us work there any longer, we've managed to stay in touch.

For the better part of two hours, we discussed a number of common individuals and personalities we worked with at that company.  Many of these folks had more lofty job titles than we did at the time, which is also what made them commonly known to us.  And most of them were lousy at their jobs.

After swapping stories about those mid-to-upper level management people, it became obvious to us that their work had little correlation to organizational success.  Most of them had far exceeded the Peter Principle, reaching a level even beyond their competence.  They were actually better examples of the so-called Dilbert Principle, meaning they were promoted to management because they would do less harm there than on the front lines.

However, what really struck me is how they didn't do any better managing their personal lives.  It was notable how many of them today are divorced, and/or obese, and/or still working because they can't afford to retire.  If there was any correlation, that was it -- if you aren't that good at your occupation, you probably aren't that that good at life, either.

Maybe you learn what you work?

Dear Graduating Class of 2018

Another school year ends, another commencement-style address begins:

To the college graduates of 2018:

Are you paying attention?

Not to me, not to any words of wisdom you might get from thousands of different college commencement address speakers.  Are you paying attention to what's going on in America?  To what's going on in the world?

Paying attention to civilization is the most important thing you should be doing now.  I know, it wasn't your strong suit the past several years.  You did enough to get your degree, but listening to long, boring lectures doesn't lend itself to paying attention.  For anyone.

If paying attention hasn't been your thing the past four (five? six?) years, it needs to be now.  Bad stuff is happening.  Stuff that has the potential to make your future miserable.  I'm not just referring to your job future, but your future of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Through a mixture of inattentiveness, conniver-y, and outright lying, certain individuals have been given power that far exceeds their ethical and moral capacity to handle it.  This has led to them placing other ethically- and morally- challenged people in powerful posts.

The not-so-surprising result is a government that isn't actually working for the people.  It's only working for, well, let's just say your chances of success are currently for less dependent on whether you have a college degree and for more on whether you are a white, heterosexual, Christian male.

Are you paying attention now?

The way to fix our broken government is to know what's going on.  The best way to know what's going on is to stay abreast of current events, and I don't mean by keeping up with your Instagram or Twitter feeds.  That isn't nearly good enough.

Watch the news, nationally and locally, and preferably on more than one channel.  Read a bunch of different papers, articles, and books.  Talk to a lot of people, and not just to your friends, who probably already think the same way as you do, or they wouldn't be your friends.

Show a little bit of passion for having a government and political system that works the right way, under the rule of law  -- after all, you're paying for it, even if you don't have a job.  Then, when election day rolls around, vote.

Pay attention!

Oh, and congratulations.