Good evening Americas, good afternoon Middle
Earth (after you wake up and are up and about), and good morning Eastern Earth!
From today I’m going to start with my Song of the
Day. Choose to play it in the background while you read on. Or keep it to play
after you’ve finished reading - whatever suits your fancy!
I was wondering how to begin today’s story, and
then it struck me that my day is rolling to a close and there’s lots to share
anyway. Like I mentioned earlier we’re going to learn to partee from today. I’ve
essentially added that word to my dictionary and hopefully you will when we get
through this. It’s simple to explain, complex to practice.
So...first things first. To partee, we’ll first need
to talk about the “why?”. What do I mean by that? I mean purpose. Being
purposeful about the things we do, about the things we think about, and having
a “reason for being”, and like my French teacher used to say (and one of the
very few instances of French I do remember to this day), the “raison d’etre”
for thinking about something and doing something. So in essence it’s like a
piece of us asking us WHY, whether it’s something we want to do, or it might be
something as simple as ‘why do we exist’ or ‘what’s the reason for me to exist?’
or ‘why should I be doing what I’m doing right now’. Now that I’ve beaten that
horse till that super massive black hole at the center of our Milky Way, let’s
talk examples!
We had our company chief executive officer give
us a State of the Business this morning. I’ll tell you one thing - this is the
time when leadership’s true colors shine forth. It certainly did with him this
morning. You know why? He just kept repeating this over and over in different
forms...that there were two things that make us who we are - our culture, and
our people. Well those two are connected and influence each other. Our people create,
develop, nurture and uphold our culture. And our culture make our people who we
are. Simple ain’t it? Not quite! Firstly, we need to have our own “culture”.
And what is that?
There once was a great statesman in India called
Rajaji; he was quite a close associate to Mahatma Gandhi. And he defined
culture a certain way which has stuck with me for a long time. And he goes “Civilization
is the development of restraint. And civilizations have two instruments to
achieve their purpose” (ah, that purpose word again!). “One is government, and
the other is culture. Culture is the habit of successful self-control. Culture
is a subtle instrument...” Look at how beautifully described that is. Again, “kissing”
always works...keep it simple, stupid!
But I digress, folks. Where I was going with that
was to bring the core of that message of our chief executive to you - which was,
“don’t worry folks; we’re going to get through this crisis. You know why? Because
we know our purpose, and we will continue towards our purpose through our
people and our culture.” And when we have the right culture, we understand our
purpose, and we have our reason to exist. We know WHY we work in our company,
for what, and we care for each other. And, therefore, our culture takes us
forward through good times and bad. Q.E.D. Got it?
And similarly, the p in partee is simple, the purpose
behind everything we do - whether its thinking about going to graduate school,
or going to the gym, or planning to manage our time better, or spending more
time with the family, or planning to eat that stuff and not this stuff, or just
plain vanilla relax. Know what I’m saying? Like we ask where I live. To give
more flavor to this let’s take a simpler example and keep getting simpler as we
go. So this morning I wake up right? I kept looking at the ceiling and the fan
going. And going. And going. Yeah, yes, energizer bunny. Nope that’s not where
I’m going. I keep looking at the ceiling and feel this frikking emptiness in my
mind. And feel that this is stupid. Why? I ask myself. The answer flashed in
front of me. My poetic self (yeah I got that too) goes...’twas because I wasn’t
thinking yonder. My normal self said I wasn’t thinking what I needed to do
right then, and why. Oh yes, (the ‘what’ coming up) I needed to go to the
bathroom, remember to wash my hands with soap and water for at least twenty seconds
(sing happy birthday and whatever), and (purpose coming up) this would avoid
infecting myself and my family.
A bit more simpler...I needed to climb down the
stairs; to go downstairs! Even simpler...I had to switch on the lights - to see,
dammit. Even simpler...I had to wake up - to live the day. Want to keep going? I
had to think, to tell myself I exist. More...I had to tell myself there’s a
reason I exist, because I do, and I have a purpose!
We got there, ultimately. And hope you’re still
with me and not going “enough already!” We do have a purpose. And there’s a
reason I wrote this about the “p” word in partee, because it stands for
purpose, the core of why we’re going to get through this, like we have been
through lots of crises and we will be through lots more. We’re civilization’s
cultural instrument, remember? J
So here’s my parting shot for the day...purpose
defines purpose. It’s the beginning of the partee, and its foundation. It’s the
heart of why we’re here, and it’s at the core of our being. It IS the core of
our being. Enough already! Give me a smile and get on with life. You’ve got
your purpose. You’ve always had it. You’ve got plenty of time to think about
it. So, sit your ass down, take some time for yourself and think.
I’ll leave you again with my Song of the Day...check
it out and sing along if possible. Every one of my songs of the day will be the
bright corona of our eclipse. And make it brighter.
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