Mistakes were made

This is possibly one of the most frustrating sentences in the English language. Mistakes were made (but nobody made them).

My beginner class is tackling the Yamas and Niyamas as a way to organize the classes. The theme for this week was Satya – the truth. The truth is much more than a mere absence of lies. It’s truth in word and deed. Walking the walk as well as talking the talk… more or less.

Several weeks ago, against my better judgment, I voluntarily associated myself with a group of people for the purpose of completing a project. It’s become one of the most maddening experiences of the last decade of my life, chiefly because I’ve had to deal with one of those people for whom the words “Mistakes were made (but nobody made them and especially not me)” is a lifestyle choice.

The facts of the matter are mistakes were made and PEOPLE made them. It wasn’t done out of malice or out of greed. Mistakes were made because sometimes we shut up when we should talk; we talk when we should shut up. We listen with our brains for the purpose of countering another’s points in the ensuing argument instead of listening with our hearts to hear what the other is saying beyond the words. We imagine another to have our same values. We project our wishes onto others. We assume others can read our minds. We say words that we think will mean X – they get heard as Y.

Personally, I don’t think any human being who has ever attempted to communicate with any other human is immune to these mistakes. It’s part of the human condition. How we cope with these limitations on language is by being aware of them.

I’ve had several run-ins with a work colleague who seems to excel at the poison email. I’ve tried ignoring him but that strategy only seems to fuel his anger. My problem when I find his frequent loads of toxicity in my in-box is that I eventually have to deal with him and therein lays the choice – I can take the high road and try to be the bigger person or I can just let vintage “Kate MacKay” out of the cage. If you have the mental picture of someone bellowing “Let loose the hounds of war”, you’ll pretty much sum up the concept “vintage Kate MacKay”. I have a biting anger that works like a cutting torch on mere mortals. I can slice, dice, and julienne most people with my tongue. My command of language combined with a full head of steam can result in absolute brutality. I’m sarcastic and quick to form judgments. I can usually figure out someone’s weak points and on my lesser days, I go for the jugular. These incidents have never the proudest moments I’ve had in my career as a human being. The temporary satisfaction of triumphing over my perceived enemy has never been worth the long-term shame over how much damage I inflicted. That’s my satya – within me lie demons of ego that best lay sleeping – in spite of my desire to lash out like a two year old. At some point in the game, I need to square my shoulders, be the responsible adult, and do what I can to keep things moving forward in a productive manner instead of indulging my infantile longings for revenge.

Satya — it’s so much easier in theory. It is so much easier in theory. We speak the truth. We don’t tell lies. But what happens when the “truth”, as near as I can figure it out, is “you’ve made a rotten business decision”, or “that decision was ill-advised, poorly thought out and an excellent example of short term thinking”. How does one delicately say, “that particular course of action can only be described as the perfect storm of egoism, strategic ineptitude and irrationality”?

When I’m asked directly, do I speak the truth and invite the hyper-defensive backlash or do I polite murmur something soothing, anything to keep the peace, and let the situation build to hurricane strength?

Getting into a ‘flame war’ with this individual would only goad him into upping it another notch. I suspect he really wants someone to take him on so he has a reason to blow up. It’s a control thing. It’s how he manages people issues in his life – by making his perceived enemies (which is just about the population of the entire planet) want to slit their wrists rather than deal with his emotional baggage one more time. Truly, how does one make peace with someone who thrives on war? When every interpersonal transaction is reduced to a zero sum game – I win; you lose – the soul wearies quickly. Passive-aggressive people are difficult to deal with because they are so emotionally dishonest – with themselves. They’re the masters of ensuring no one can win. It’s a strategy of what I’ve always called “blow torch diplomacy’. The peace is kept by ensuring that everyone within arm’s length is burnt to cinders.

Mistakes were made… damn right. What was my role in the mistake making process? Partly, it came about because I wasn’t honest with others. I had a longer history of dealing with this man than the others. Previously, I’d been on the receiving end of his complete abdication of any sense of personal responsibility for anything. This work project was something I entered into against my better judgment. Was it just last year that I swore I would NEVER do business with him again in any capacity?

So why did I go along with it? I did it because I didn’t know how to voice my objections in a way that didn’t sound like pettiness and backbiting gossip. I did it because I didn’t know how to say, “I can’t deal with this person. We have a history, and I don’t have the capacity to deal with him.” I didn’t know how to say to him, “I don’t want to work with you because whenever I do, I develop this never-ending throbbing pain in my ass that lasts for weeks.” I did it because it was easier to go with the flow and hope for the best than pay attention to the wisdom of my own voice.

So, Kate, how do you like your dukha – over easy or sunny-side up? We create our own suffering. I got caught out here trying to respect the principle of ahimsa (non-violence) over satya (truth). I would have avoided the whole mess if only I found the courage to respect my own wisdom on the issue of working with this man. It would have resulted in some embarrassment. I might have even risked being perceived by others in my work group as being “mean” or “jealous” or “insecure” because I didn’t want to work with this seemingly charming man.

Inwardly, even as I write this, I’m cringing because I know that things are eventually going to come to a head between this man and me. Ignoring each other isn’t an option. At some point, I’m going to need to put the concepts of Ahimsa and Satya together and directly say, “No, I don’t want to work with you on this or any other project because I find you too difficult to work with.”

Does that sound mean-spirited and cutting? Hmmmmmmm, do you see what I mean? I got myself into this mess in the first place because I was overly concerned about how I would be perceived by others. Maybe in the future version of myself, I will have grown a spine. Otherwise, mistakes will be made.

Namaste and thanks for reading,

Kate

What price do we pay for convenience?

Last week, I noted with some chagrin that WordPress, the hosting company for this blog, announced that they are commencing 24-hour technical support. When I read the comments section on the WordPress blog, this is apparently a good thing in the eyes of WordPress users. Yeee-haw – there will be no more waiting until the next day to have your pressing WordPress questions answered. Thank God someone is keeping the world safe for democracy.

Okay – I’ll try to can the sarcasm, if for no other reason than I think that the “new and improved service” is probably well intentioned albeit poorly thought out. Obviously, WordPress is a company with a global audience and it doesn’t take too much to figure out that global means a 24-hr work day if you want to make it that way. I’ll give the management of WordPress full credit for taking pride in being consumer oriented and responsive to their customer needs.

Which more or less brings me to my point – needs. Does anyone really NEED to have 24 hr tech service support on their blog? I mean, really?

As a lifelong shift worker, I see this development as something other than a “good thing’. The fact of the matter is that shift work costs people in terms of their health and well-being. There’s plenty of clinical evidence out there indicating what is patented obvious to anyone who has worked shift work for an extended period of time. First of all, shift work basically buggers your circadian rhythms. As a group, shift workers suffer more from metabolic disorders, including obesity, than other workers. Independent of body weight, they appear to have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, increased risk of gastrointestinal problems, higher rates of depression, high risk of motor vehicle accidents and an increased likelihood of family problems, including divorce. Most shift workers are chronically sleep-deprived. They tend to sleep two to three hours less per day than non-shift workers. Chronic sleep deprivation plays havoc on the immune system, making shift workers more susceptible to infectious diseases.

None of this laundry list of bad things is ‘news’. We’ve known about the physiological effects of shift work on human health for a very long time. And it is understood from the get-go that there are some people who are just going to need to work shift work. Anyone involved in emergency services – police, fire, ambulance – are going to be doing graveyards. There’s a lot of other jobs where people NEED to be at work 24/7. The guys working in the control center of your local nuclear power plant would be a prime example of this and I’m sure each of you can come up with another 40 examples on your own.

But over the past 20 years, I’ve noticed a shift in the definition of NEED when it comes to shift work. Convenience store employees are now expected to work twenty-four hours in case someone needs an emergency Slushie™. If you have a Big Mac attack at 4 am, the folks at McDonald’s are working to deliver it. And, and, and, and bloody and. It’s non-stop. By days, I swear there are more people working shift work and so called ‘irregular hours’ than there is the “normal” 9-5 crowd. Culturally, the 24 hour work day is becoming the new normal.

And I know, someone right about now is going to pipe up about how some people prefer working nights. No kidding – I’m one of them. I just finished a voluntary rotation of 5 nights on a holiday weekend in August. Just because I like working nights should not be confused with the fact that it’s killing me in bits and pieces. Now, I’m one of those people with a job that demands 24 hour coverage. I’m a 9-1-1 operator and I’m sure it’s a point of universal agreement that when someone calls 9-1-1 at 4 am, there should be someone there to answer the phone. I’d like to add that I’m also extremely well paid for my efforts, I have excellent medical and other insurance benefits that I use to help rectify the mess I’m making of my body and I’m out with a 30 year pension at the age of 55.

The problem with this is the cost and I’m not talking about costs that show up on the profit-loss statements. I’m talking about the human costs that show up in business reports in the most tangential ways, like absenteeism and lower productivity. Shift work exacts a toll on individual human health. It impacts the health and well-being of our families. If one member of a family works shift work, the entire family is effectively working shift work. It impacts the health and welfare of our communities because shift workers are less likely to join community service groups, or volunteer with our churches, youth groups or charitable organizations. Shift work by its very nature is isolating and it fragments our communities and our society.

I thing we should start looking at what it is we think we NEED to have available on a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week basis. As a society, do we really NEED Slushies or Big Macs or stale donuts available every minute of the day? Do we NEED to have the shelves at Wal-Mart and the grocery store stocked overnight or could it be done during ‘business’ hours, like it was 30 years ago. Was there really that much of a consumer shopping experience by having someone restock the canned goods while the store was open? And while we’re at it, as a society do we NEED to subject some people to working shift work because we think we need to have our blog questions answered 24-7. I have to ask, what’s wrong with sending an email and getting an answer the next day, or two days hence? There’s no potential for loss of life or property damage if a question about margins goes unanswered for 48 or 72 hours. So why are these people being asked to risk their bodily health to answer questions of this nature? The cost of this service is too high a price and I think that should be something worthy of consideration in our ‘service oriented” society.

Thanks for reading and Namaste,

Kate

Ow, now that hurt…

And no, it wasn’t yoga that is the cause of all this malarkey but Mother of Pearl, I am one sore yogini today.

The cause of my distress is my massage therapist, Julie, an otherwise lovely woman who masquerades as the Marquis de Sade’s younger sister. For some reason, over the past 4 months, the fascia on the left side of my body has decided to tighten up. It showed up first on my radar screen in late February when I went into One Legged Pigeon. The right side was fine; the left side was not so fine. I couldn’t even approach the pose and very quickly came out of it rather than risk an injury.

To tell the truth, I hadn’t thought much of it. Although I love it, Pigeon is not something I go into a lot.

But as the end of my teacher’s training came, I found my body was not being as co-operative. I assumed it was because my daily practice had pretty much gone to pot and I’ve really only resumed it this past six weeks and the left side of my body is decidedly less flexible than the right. Today’s massage session confirmed it. Julie agreed, the left side fascia is much much tighter. The IT band and the outer quadricep is bound as is the left tricep. So what to do? I’ll figure that out tomorrow. Right now, I’m very fatigued and I hurt like a son of a gun.

The treatment was very painful. So far today, my practice has consisted of sitting in a hot tub, feet flat on the floor of the tub, spine straight and breathing. I think today it’s going to be 20 minutes of meditation and calling it a day. It’s not so much that I’m being a wimp — I’m just honouring the principle of Ahimsa — non-violence towards myself.

Thanks for reading and Namaste,

Kate