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FOR PAPER CUTS AND DEEPER HURTS
Wednesday June 29, 2016
People skills start with how we treat our most important people – ourselves first.
Then everyone else.
We all have thick skin, right?
Got a paper cut lately?
~ not so thick, is it?
Most people – most careers, families and organizations – develop ‘thick skin’, resistance to insult, slight or inconsideration.
In business, you can’t get along very far or very long without it.
Still, it stings. Not always, but sometimes it does. Momentarily. Or lasting?
We choose, when it stings, to ignore or pay attention. But what kind of attention?
Do we re-learn old lessons or react in that moment? When we react in that moment it usually takes one of two forms:
1.internalize it and give it more life, time and impact than it deserves
2.react
Reaction – could be a quickly blurted comment, or just a stare. There it is, released without thought or calculation.
Or, if we hold our facial expression, and our tongue for just a minute.
Or we can hold it for an hour.
Or longer. Long enough to think through our response carefully.
Or, if we think about it long enough, perhaps no need to react at all. Not because it wasn’t as painful as a paper cut (and those suckers can cut deep sometime), but because life is short and those things – most of those things won’t matter a year from now.
Some won’t matter tomorrow and most won’t matter even an hour from now.
Then your phone might ring. Don’t hold your breath waiting for an apology. More likely it will be someone else about something else. Doesn’t cure paper cuts, but cures most other hurts.
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk with Gusta: 13C/56F, another sunny start (and again, afternoon thunderstorms predicted – yesterday’s was devastating around the city … flooding, lightning striking houses etc.); but for now, it is gorgeous …
Reader feedback:
OLD WAYS AND ALL WAYS
I’ve tried to quit using always and forever but, you do give three great areas we hope they do apply in. LH Lethbridge, AB
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