It’s Christmas Eve as I write. Some traces of the season’s first snow remain, and the sky has that expectant look that signals more to come. For this writer, it’s the very best time of the year—a time when the world slows down for a while and seems to take a deep breath before gearing up again. “Peace on earth” is a pretty nice thing.
As you read this, the signs of approaching spring will be undeniable. Life’s tempo will regain its customary speed. Still, sometimes we need to pause, take that deep breath and ponder really important matters.
The amount of venom in public discourse these days is quite remarkable. If one were to take it all seriously, we would have to conclude irrefutably that we’re under attack from illegal aliens, from a cabal of atheists who insist on misspelling Christmas, and from Group X who, as we all know (and must never forget!) perpetrated Atrocity Y on our people. It’s enough to make a person want to dive in with both guns blazing.
But let’s stop for a minute. While we can’t always control what happens in our lives, we can control how we react. In his book, Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligman suggests that our reactions will have a profound impact on the quality of the rest of our lives. Perhaps the time has come to holster the guns, hold off on responding to those emails and recommit to living our values.
Dispensing religious advice lies well beyond the scope of this publication, although it seems likely that any deity who can create a universe is secure enough to handle the misspelling of His/Her name. At work, however, perhaps it’s time to mentor, or just befriend, that timid employee who hovers around the edges of groups. Some in that group of employees from east Africa will no doubt be delighted to explain the significance of the ritual ablutions they perform. From others, you can learn a bit of Spanish (and they English) while you work through job challenges.
The world at work is changing as elsewhere. The legal and verbal battles will no doubt continue regardless of anything we do individually. But, we as leaders can still make our areas of responsibility into the kinds of places where we want to invest a third of our days. Peace on earth—and good will among men!—still works quite well as a place to begin.