The world is getting smaller and smaller, you can’t get off the hook the way you used to. Covering your ass just won’t cut it anymore. More is asked of you and you can’t hide behind many facades anymore. Everyone knows you.
Cutting corners, advisory warnings, dodging, these are made impossible with the web, social media and six degrees of separation. The bare minimum isn’t enough – you’re asked to provide value, you’re asked to care, really care about the people you interact with. There’s no line between business and personal – the world is a shoebox, it’s all personal. And the decisions you make impact other human lives. You can’t hide behind your past, behind your corporation, behind your bad mood, so what… you messed up, you didn’t deliver, you were inconsiderate, suck it up – make it right. There’s no excuse, no awning to shelter you.
You’re responsible.
You’re responsible for the manuscript you deliver, the cook book you publish, and while you were at it, you may have well put your heart and soul into it. After all, you wrote it to touch lives. You want to go to bed knowing, you delivered, all-the-way!
You’re accountable for treating others with same respect and courtesy you’d like. “I’m just letting you know because I don’t want to hurt anyone,” is bullshit. You know, you know exactly where you’re at. Suck it up, you’re being asked to care. The world expects you to care. Why? Because you’re not separate from anything, what you do to a stranger, you’re doing to your brother, your sister, your beloveds, YOURSELF. That means you need to think and feel beyond your own belly button. And if you neglected to do that, at the very least, know how to give a proper apology. Do it, now.
You’ve got the power to mend a piece of someone’s brokenness. Swallow your damn pride and do the right thing. Not the thing that covers your ass. The thing that treats a fellow human being, like just that, a fellow human being. One who’s doing the best they can, just like you. One who gets scared, stumbles, has bad moments, just like you. What if it was sister? your brother? your mother? MAKE IT RIGHT.
The expectations you only realized you had after the fact. Someone worked really really hard for a very long time, blood sweat and tears. If they honoured you, if they delivered, and delivered with love. If you now have art that allows you touch more and more lives, to make a difference in the world, to realize your dreams, what price is there to put on that? Realize how invaluable that is and honour the truth you spoke,the deal you made.
The older fresh goods you’re trying to pass, don’t hide them at the bottom of the basket where the client can’t see it. There’s a bin for that, a marked down section for that. Maybe someone needs to make jam, or broth. You passing your bad fruit amongst the fresh only gives you a name for a person who hides the not so great in the wonderful. You’re lowering the quality of the standards you’re known for in order to make an extra dollar now.
The grocer at the farmer’s market who gives his clients a free vegetable with their purchase now and then, he knows what’s up. He’s got lineups weekend after the weekend, AND a mark down bin.
The guy who lets a girl down easy after he came on strong because he knows she’ll be better off without him even if she doesn’t see it yet because she believes in him. And he checks in with her consistently, to make sure they’re cool, she’s doing well and she sees the value she brought to him, and to this world and to make sure she gets it, that guy knows what’s up. That guy has my respect.
The bank employee who (could have) side stepped “the rules” because she’s heard the human side of the client story – because if she’d been robbed 4 days before Christmas and left with only 200$ and no access to her money, a credit card, a bank card for over 10 days, she’d appreciate someone going out of her away to make her Christmas holidays a little warmer (true story). It’s too bad though, people hide behind call center headsets and their sense of disconnection.
There’s no excuse to prey on the weak. To screw someone to make an extra dollar. To lie just to get some. No justification for it. To screw others, even if you warn them, even if you think you’re justified, even if, even if, even if… it’s just not acceptable anymore. You can’t hide, not even from yourself.The world asks of you to care, the world ask of you to be self-aware, the world asks of you to step it up. There is no shortage of opportunity, no shortage of all sorts of people to do business, or have pleasure with. If you’re looking for the “thrill of the kill” then find players whom you can provide value to in exchange for that kill, and make sure you provide it.
Screw “fairness”. Caring is the new fair. Delivering is the new fair. Stepping up is the new fair. Purpose is the new fair. Value is the new fair. Human is the new fair. The ego is in its hour of death, one moment of awareness at a time.
You have no excuse, there’s a bus that’s passing every 5 minutes, every where you look.
K.M.