Reheating a Souffle

I made one of my rare public appearances last week and my informant who unfortunately wasn't there to witness the event told me the report on the grapevine the next day was, "He was in a great mood. He even was letting people touch him!" Reports of my happiness were greatly exaggerated. Honestly, I left a happy hour anything but, cursing myself at trying to recapture something I never grasped to begin with.

I saw someone I hadn't seen for awhile. She was someone I once was in my own dweebish terms, smitten with (see last year's summer newsletters for details...). It was a bit of a shock to the system to see her this night. Her hair was styled different. Her eyes still had the nervous energy, and she looked like she was enjoying herself. At the beginning of the evening she sat far away, the other side of a combination of tables. By the end of the night, she was next to me, back turned without a word of acknowledgment. Meek was I, wondering if perhaps everyone else around could feel the discomfort in the air. Was I back in junior high?

I should've known better. Life has its magical moments, and the biggest mistake you can make is to try and go back and experience the same feeling, the same moment over again. Why bother re-lighting a spent match? Strike a new one. No matter where you are, you gotta keep moving forward. As that great philosopher once advised, you should never look back.

A few weeks ago in these pages, we ran an article written by Peter Glen, an elderly gentleman, who warned that once a person stops learning, they stop living. We have admittedly ran a lot of filler in these pages, but this particular article struck a nerve with me. There has been some discussion within our company on the merits of tying pay with gaining knowledge. Some seem to feel reading a book should not be connected with getting a raise. I disagree. It is knowledge that helps us all do our jobs better. And yes, knowledge more often than not, is gained by on the job experiences, but it is up to us all as employees to show that we care enough about our jobs to demonstrate our education on the job in tangible ways. If you've been exposed to new ideas, new concepts, perhaps a few of them will begin to eventually sink in. We take too much for granted these days, and expect everyone to automatically notice our efforts and our accomplishments as if they owe us that much.

Life really is about having to prove yourself over and over. What happened yesterday isn't of much consequence unless you can show you learned from past events. Experience isn't necessarily knowledge. Some of us never catch on and make the same mistakes over and over again. The oldest Catch-22 in the book of employment is that most organizations want to hire people with experience, but how is a person supposed to get experience if no one will hire them? Just as you work your way out of that dilemma, you find that more and more, our culture rewards being young. This is unfortunate. We should really be honoring, listening to, treasuring those out there who have traveled the long road and have managed to somehow survive. Too often we are consumed with the current fad, with what is visually appealing to us now rather than honor that which has somehow managed to transcend time and remain true and valuable.

So I returned to my so called life, this so called happy hour wondering how I was going to react or respond to the downward turn of events of the evening. Would I let it effect me as much as a similar experience would have in the past? If it didn't was this a sign of progress, of maturity or was it a sign of a continual deadening, a cynicism inside? I didn't sulk, I merely shrugged. One of the hardest things to learn is how to deal with disappointments. You think those of us who have had so many would eventually get the hang of it. Unfortunately, I don't think you ever do.

Often the best you can do is to learn how to put yourself in situations where you will have the best chance of succeeding. Learn to apply the little knowledge you've gained to put yourself in the right place at the right time. This is no small talent to learn. These may be small victories, but you take what you can get. And when you do fail, you do so in a way where you can fool some of the people. File away them failures and dissect them for the lessons they contain. Don't dwell, don't let them be the end all, the giving up point. As the great green little fella once sang, "Keep on trying, keep on smiling, keep believing, keep pretending..."