Please excuse me if I'm a little pensive today.
Mark is leaving, and I'm feeling kind of sad.
You probably don't know Mark, but you might be lucky enough
to know someone just like him. He's been the heart and soul
of the office for a couple of years, combining exemplary
professional skills with a sweet nature and gentle
disposition. He's never been all that interested in getting
credit for the terrific work he does. He just wants to do
his job, and to do it superbly well.
And now he's moving on to an exciting new professional
opportunity. It sounds like it could be the chance of a
lifetime, and we're genuinely, sincerely pleased for him.
But that doesn't make it any easier to say goodbye to a dear
friend and trusted colleague.
Life has a way of throwing these curve balls at us. Just when
we start to get comfortable with a person, a place or a
situation, something comes along to alter the recipe. A
terrific neighbor moves away. Someone in the family graduates.
A child finds new love and loyalties through marriage. The
family's principle bread-winner is laid off.
Our ability to cope with change and disruption determines,
to a great degree, our peace, happiness and contentment in
life.
But how do we do that? Philosophers have considered the
question for centuries, and their responses have been varied.
According to the author of the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes,
comfort can be found in remembering that "to every thing there
is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven." Kahlil
Gibran urged his listeners to "let today embrace the past with
remembrance, and the future with longing."
A friend of mine who works for the government is fond of
reminding his fellow bureaucrats that "survivability depends
upon adaptability." And then there's Chris, the California
surf-rat, who once told me that the answer to life's problems
can be summed up in four words: "Go with the flow."
"It's like surfing," Chris explained. "You can't organize the
ocean. Waves just happen. You ride 'em where they take you,
then you paddle back out there and catch the next one. Sure,
you're always hoping for the perfect wave where you can get,
like, you know, totally tubular. But mostly you just take 'em
the way they come. It's not like you're trying to nail Jell-O
to a tree, you know?"
I'm not exactly sure, but I think Chris was saying that life
is a series of events -- both good and bad. No matter how deft
your organizational skills, there will always be
life-influencing factors over which you have no control. The
truly successful person expects the unexpected, and is prepared
to make adjustments should the need arise -- as it almost
always does.
That doesn't mean you don't keep trying to make all your
dreams come true. It just means that when things come up that
aren't exactly in your plan, you work around them -- and then
you move on. Of course, some bumps along the road of life are
easier to take than others. A rained-out picnic, for example,
is easier to cope with than the sudden death of a loved one.
But the principle is the same.
"Change, indeed, is painful, yet ever needful," said
philosopher Thomas Carlyle. "And if memory have its force and
worth, so also has hope."
We're going to miss Mark, just like you'll miss that graduate,
that neighbor or that newlywed. But rather than dwell on the
sadness of our parting, we'll focus on our hopes for a brighter
future -- for him, and for us. And then we'll go out and do
everything we can to make that future happen.
Until our plans change -- again.
-- Joseph Walker |
