The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts

It used to be my job was fairly free of politics.  Now, not so much.

I was telling my friend Tami over lunch that I'm not sure I could have handled this job at an earlier point in my career.  It seems to require all the Zen training and forty years wandering the desert looking for the Promised Land type of patience to negotiate the ever shifting terrain.

Despite my grand intention of saving the world one student at a time, the truth is I am the one who has been saved by students, staff, business partners, and the necessary evils of structure, limitations, and political correctness.  Essentially everything I thought would destroy me.

Yet each day I get to practice compassion, time management, improv, assertiveness, decision making, and failing or succeeding spectacularly.  Each day I get to learn how I might communicate more effectively, how my actions impact others, and how daring to risk public humiliation, admit I am wrong, or contribute to a meeting instead of suffer through it might change things, or at least me.

In other words, I have a constant source of writing material.  Not to mention an ever deepening source of spiritual practice.

I remember when I used to call myself the Queen of Calm and offer tension tackling tips and stress less living strategies to companies from the luxury of my adobe home in Santa Fe.  While I was indeed practicing what I was preaching, I was not experiencing what the average stressed out worker bee was experiencing.  Once I stepped back into this world, the epiphany hit.
This is why these people are stressed!

Just about everyone has more on their plate than they can possibly handle on any given Wednesday.  Consequently I keep a plaque close by that reminds me to "Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

Easier said than done.

But today instead of being the judge, jury, and executioner, I granted everyone immunity. (Perhaps the result of last week's jury duty experience?) I'd start with the premise that everyone was doing their best. We were all striving for the same thing. We were all equally brilliant and flawed.  And the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Six word summary:  Save the drama for your mama. 

Or all's we are saying is :  Give peace (or peas) a chance.

Or on a completely different note, should you forget your dentist appointment in the midst of managing meetings and coordinating complex communications, be warned:  The dentist will hunt you down.