Something for Nothing

What would our lives be like if we only got what we deserved? 

I began to ponder this question after a recent visit to Starbucks. A few days ago, I swung into the Starbucks drive-through lane to get a Salted Caramel Mocha Frappucino (these are amazingly delicious).  I placed my order and pulled around to the pick- up window. Standing there was one of the most frazzled women I have seen in quite some time.  Her headset sat weirdly positioned atop something that looked like a giant hair-alarm going off. Her apron was spotted with milk and dark spots that I am hoping were coffee grounds. Her eyes were a bit glazed over and appeared to be going in two different directions at once. I was taken aback (and a bit frightened). 

It appeared that she was attempting to take orders at both the drive-up window and at the indoor counter, collect payment, make the coffee herself, and then rush back to the counter or drive-up window to serve it to the customer; all pretty much single-handed. I think she may have been having a nervous breakdown. 

She distractedly told me that my coffee would be ready “in just a second”. So I waited. And waited. The line of cars began to stretch out behind me. Eventually, she reappeared at the window and apologetically told me that only she and one other employee were working – everyone else had gone to lunch. She apologized for the delay and disappeared back around the corner. So, I waited some more. Finally, she returned with a cup of coffee and, apologizing again, handed it out through the window. I thanked her and attempted to hand her a tip.

You would’ve thought that I’d attempted to hand her a cobra. 

She jerked her hand back, and yelped “Oh no! I didn’t earn that! Geez, you’ve been out here, like, forever!” 

I told her to take it anyway and to consider it a "gift". She looked stunned. Then grateful. Then a little bit more sane.

Now, don’t misunderstand: it wasn’t a huge tip. It was a dollar. And I was disappointed in the service. But times are tough and money is hard to come by, and minimum wage jobs alone won’t pay the rent. Tips matter. I suspect she was doing the best she could, given the circumstances. But as I drove away, I couldn’t get her words and reaction out of my head: “I didn’t earn that…”

I am extraordinarily grateful for the fact that I don’t get only what I deserve. Actually, I am grateful for more than that. I am grateful that I don’t always get what I deserve.

Sometimes, I act badly, but people choose to be nice to me anyway. Sometimes I deserve to be punished or scolded, but instead I am forgiven. Sometimes people do nice things for me, based simply on the fact that they care about me, not because they feel they owe me anything. And sometimes people who don’t know me, at all, do nice things for me (they let me go in front of them at the checkout counter or they hold the door open for me when my hands are full), and I have never, ever seen them before in my life, and will probably never see them again. Their kindness isn’t based upon my behavior or their relationship with me, or the fact that I may return the favor someday; it is based upon the quality of their character. Multiple times each day, I receive things I didn’t earn and kindnesses I may not deserve. As do we all.

When we give things to others because they have earned them, they are not gifts. They are payments for services rendered. When we give thing to others, and we expect to receive something in return, we aren’t giving a gift. We are beginning a commercial transaction. 

A gift – in its truest form – is giving someone something (things, or kindness, or tolerance, or love) for nothing. They have not earned what you are offering. It is graciousness extended in the absence of worth. It is receiving a tip when the service you provided was disappointing. It is being spotted by the police when you are driving faster than the speed limit, and not receiving a ticket. It is walking away unharmed when you have engaged in a fit of temper. It is being kissed goodnight by a child who never got the chance to sit on your lap today because you were so “busy”. 

The Thanksgiving season is now upon us. We will talk about Pilgrims and Indians. We will eat turkey and pumpkin pie. We will receive and send cards that talk about our blessings. And most of us are very blessed indeed. But I wonder if we will take the time this year to contemplate the fact that we continually receive gifts that we are unaware of, ones that we cannot even begin to give thanks for by name, and of which we are undeserving? Or, of just how many times we are mercifully spared from receiving what we truly deserve? 

At times, we all receive more than we’ve earned and less than we deserve. I am so grateful for that. I hope you are too. 

How Much Respect Can You Afford to Lose?

As I write this, Netflix is attempting to climb out of one of the most predictable business failures ever. Apparently, the only people surprised by the dismal abyss Netflix has landed in are the executives at Netflix themselves. I, along with about 100,000 other people, warned them that raising their rates by 60% was ill-advised and wouldn’t be well received…but, apparently no one at Netflix can read email or the postings on their corporate Facebook page (perhaps if it isn’t released on video, they can’t comprehend it).

At this time in our nation’s history, when nearly 1 out of 10 Americans is unemployed, it’s a less-than-an-ideal time to raise the cost of anything. But the new Netflix pricing scheme seemed particularly shortsighted in light of the fact that Netflix isn’t in the entertainment business, it’s in the “mental escape” business.  Netflix isn’t really in the business of renting videos and streaming content, it is in the business of selling a ninety minute break from an often harsh and demanding reality. The Netflix service was providing families with the opportunity to come together for a couple of hours on a Friday night, watch a movie, and temporarily forget that the world outside was not as economically forgiving as it was five years ago. But rather than make that “mental vacation” an option for even more people (aka, potential customers) Netflix chose to make it harder for the customers they already had. And, to compound the problem, they put people in a position to have to think about the very thing they wanted to stop thinking about in the first place. Money.

 

Is it any surprise that such a strategy would fail?

So what does all of this have to do with personal growth and the pursuit of excellence? Everything. Because the key to success, whether in business or in personal life, is to understand that everything is a two-way street. No one operates in a vacuum. Decisions have consequences, and no one will ever thank you for treating them in a cavalier way. All relationships, if they are to be effective, must be symbiotic. 

Marriages that aren’t partnerships fail.

Bosses who manage through command and control will fail.

Parents that talk more than they listen will fail.

Companies that examine only the bottom line, and forget that people are behind their profits, will fail.

You see, until we are no longer in this world, we must deal with the people who populate it. Inconvenient? Sometimes. Avoidable? Only if you live alone in a cave in Nepal.“Other people” are the rails upon which our train of success must travel.  Change or damage the rails and we change the direction of the train – or derail it completely.

I hope Netflix recovers; those little red envelopes make a lot of people happy. But, let’s make sure that their mistake isn’t our mistake. When we are tempted to make the next unilateral or self-serving decision, when we are tempted to deliver it as a “my way or the highway” ultimatum, it might serve us well to stop and ask ourselves:

“How much respect and goodwill can I afford to lose today?” 

Choose Your Own Adventure

Back when my daughter was a child, there used to be a popular series of books called “Choose Your Own Adventure”. In these books, you read part of the story, and then at a decisive moment in the plot line, that thread of the story would end abruptly and you could continue on only by choosing one of several action options; for example, if you were being chased by the abominable snowman you could 1) run away 2) hide behind the closest tree, or c) attack the monster and try to fight him off. Once you chose your action, you turned to the corresponding “action” page and took up the story again. Ultimately, the sum total of your choices led to a unique ending. Someone else could read the same book, but their choices would be different and would ultimately lead them to a completely different ending.

While these types of books were very cool, and were all the rage back in the 80’s, they were not a new concept. The same idea had been around for a long time but we called it something else. We called it “real life”: the ultimate “choose your own adventure” story.

Every day, each of us faces a multitude of decisions, large and small; of great import or nearly negligible. And it is the sum total of those decisions that constitute the life we have at right this very moment. We make a choice and then stuff happens. Sometimes it’s “good” stuff, and sometimes it’s “bad” stuff, but there is no denying that we are shaping our own reality one decision at a time. Most people don’t like to hear this. When good stuff happens, we are usually quick to take the credit. But when bad stuff happens, we see ourselves as victims of circumstance. And sometimes, we are. But even in the most unfortunate circumstances, we control the key plot element to the happy ending – our interpretation of our life’s events.

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard someone say, “If I had it to do over again…”. Well, that’s the rub. You can’t do it over again. Your past is the thread from which your present is woven, and your “now” absolutely cannot be separated from your “then”. As the filmmakers of old would say, “it’s in the can”. You may as well try to un-ring a bell. So if you can’t revise the event, what can you do? Well, how about revising the interpretation.

Consider these two women. 

Dana preferred her own company to that of other people. She had been an only child and spent the majority of her formative years playing alone.  As she grew, she found socializing with others to be difficult, and often avoided gatherings where she was not closely acquainted with all of those in attendance. As a result, she had a very limited group of friends and often felt like an outsider. In addition, she had been plagued with serious illness throughout most of her life. She struggled to maintain attendance at school, often being medically “sidelined” for weeks – and sometimes months – at a time. When she married, her husband’s work obligations further complicated her unique set of problems by forcing the family to move frequently, and providing her with little in the way of a support structure or predictable lifestyle. Looking back, she sees a “perfect storm” of circumstances that predisposed her to leading an unfulfilled, frustrating and lonely life.

Lynn was also an only child. She was born to two hardworking parents who were devoted to their daughter. In spite of the fact that she lacked playmates, she never lacked for entertainment. Her imagination was vivid, and she could lose herself for hours in the adventures of Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. She remembers her trips to the library with her mother as some of the happiest moments in her young life. She loved sitting in the company of adults, listening to their conversations and imagining all of the things she would see and do when she was old enough to be on her own. Adult life seemed so rich and exciting! She, like Dana, was not a healthy child. But she views her periods of “forced isolation” as those times when she learned and grew the most. And also like Dana, she traveled the world with her husband, learning that she could be her own best resource and that she could “hold her own” regardless of where, and in what circumstances, she found herself. Looking back, Lynn credits her unique life experiences with turning her into a strong, independent, compassionate and resourceful woman

So, whose life would you rather live – Dana’s or Lynn’s? 

You may be surprised to learn that Dana and Lynn are the same person. They are both me, and both sets of facts are true. It is only the interpretation, the perspective of the storyteller, that is different. I intentionally choose to frame my life in terms of what I have gained, to see things from “Lynn’s” point of view, rather than to frame it by what it has lacked (Dana’s point of view). And you can frame your life story in the same way.

Clinical psychologists call this reframing of one’s life story as “narrative therapy”. It’s not about being unrealistic. It’s not about changing the past. It’s about viewing the past from a different perspective. 

You see, we all “spin” our life story. There is no way that we can think of ourselves in terms of everything we have ever seen, done or experienced. We will all, by mental necessity, choose to select certain events and circumstances and frame our identity around them. And in that way, we are writing our own story each and every day. 

You have had experiences. You have made choices. These are your plot elements, and they cannot be removed from your story. But they can be “reframed”. 

So how will you choose to “write your own adventure”?