Vive La Difference

Who are we as humans? What is it that makes us hate others who are not just like us? I remember in my undergraduate years taking a course from the famous social psychologist, Carolyn Sharif. She and her husband Musafer Sharif (forgive me if I have spelled it incorrectly) conducted this great study of teenage boys called the Robber's Cave Study that I think was the foundation for some of the scenes in The Lord of The Flies. The net of the study was that is was regular behavior to define one's own group by the "out-grouping" of another. In other words, we are who we are because we are not "them." And so social scientists since the 50's and the Robber's Cave study had a way of describing what we do to each other. Read that as in "it is normal and regular to do that." Hey that is no news. Humans have killed off the "other" for as long as we have had tribes. But does it make it right or normal? I think not and in fact I am getting sick and tired of reading justifications of outgroupings whether they are based in biblical mistranslations or out of context quotations or hocus pocus bullshit made up by some egocentric narcissist too terrified of his own shadow to step into the light on his own. Well I am tired of it. What is straight or gay or whatever anyway? Who decided that mattered in determining your humanness? When I was a junior in college (that is a loooong time ago) I had a room mate who was gay (still is). And how he explained it to me was asking me if I decided to be 6'3". I said of course not, I just grew that way. Well, he said, I never decided to be gay, I just grew that way. (Thanks Peter, I still love you for all you taught me.) States and churches are falling into sides around same-sex marriages as if it is their right to legislate how tall a person should be to be considered a person. Cut me a break. It is not our decision! It is up to each individual to act on and become all he or she is meant to be irrespective of the local norms and mores of the dominant group. Despite what the Sharifs observed, it is neither right or normal to place a moral judgment on another because he or she is not like you and your group. That kind of clique behavior is as distasteful in adulthood as it was in junior high school, only the adults in question should have outgrown it! It is time we grow up as a society and face the fact that the human experience is not a unified or singular experience. Being human has about six billion different ways of manifesting and each one is as great and beautiful as the next. Thank god you are unique, and that the person next to you is unique and that I am not you. We need to stop bonding about how we are the same and rejoice in and bond around our array of differences. The human experience is a wide rainbow of colors and the boundaries are indistinguishable yet ubiquitous. I don't want to be you and you should not want to be me. So why do people think that someone else should have the same preferences as you and I do. I really don't know when it was that I knew I liked girls, but I do remember that it was after I had my boy experiences. We boys loved each other. We were inseparable and we learned about sex from each other, told tales to each other, gaped at our dad's Playboys together, and we were tighter than anything. Then one day, I noticed that girls smelled different, sounded different and I was uncontrollably attracted. I did not choose that. I just was. My room mate did not choose to stay with his boys, he just did. There is nothing more to it than that. Two of us manifesting two of the six billion ways to be a human. Praise god for that! And for god's sake, cut the crap about making differences wrong. It is what is right about being human - we are all uniquely different. Amen, amen, let it be so.

Another One Bites the Dust

For years I have been trying to get it right (whatever "it" is). It was a journey to perfection that I thought would refine my being. If I could only get this right or that perfect, then... Then what? I would be perfect, or right, or whole? I don't think I really thought much about the "then what" part.
But lately I have begun seeing that perfection is a false idol. It is idolatrous to pursue getting it "right" in the first place. God never tells us we have to get it right or perfect - not ever. Oh from time to time in the Bible there are human references to living the pure and chaste life. But those are man-made rules, not god-rules. God's rules are simple: "If and when you screw up, you get another chance - I am the reset button, just come to me and I will reset you."
What the quest for perfection creates, in reality, is separation. It creates a state of better than and worse than - a caste system of being and doing, if you will. Seeking perfection is seeking to rise above the masses, to get better and better and to reach a level of god-like-ness. It is trying to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Perfection.
But there is an alternative path that has been coming into view. When I let go of the drive for perfection,I begin to seek union, oneness and joining of the shredded and torn-apart life we live. Unity is embracing the "bad" with the good. It is the making whole from all of those parts I want to divorce from myself and pretend don't belong to me. Unity is god's commandment - but not just out there, in here as well. Unity demands that I embrace all of me, and do away with the distinctions of good and bad altogether.
And overarching all of this, the search for perfection is a search for certainty - the quest to know completely that this is it, the best, the fullest! In such a place there can be no doubt, and without doubt, there is no need for faith. And then where would I be. When I arrived at that thought - the thought that I would have no faith if I continued my quest for perfection, the wall came crashing down. And then the wall of divisiveness, came down, and then the insistence on good and bad, and me and other, each in turn fell. And one after another, as Freddie said, "Another one bites the dust, and another one gone, and another one down - another one bites the dust." Oh happy holy day!

It's Just Perfect!

Last week I gave a lecture at the Sloan Business School of MIT on the topic of rapid assimilation into a leadership or management position. Throughout the talk I fielded questions on disharmony and disagreements - the thought being that if one has done a good job selecting and interviewing, there should be a lowered probability of problems. At one point I even asked the audience how many people had the experience of being hired for a job and finding out after the fact that either the job had radically changed or that there were some deep dark, and untold secrets that had not been revealed during the interviewing process (nearly all the hands went up).

Ignoring the irrational expectation that a company should reveal its warts prior to your becoming an insider, the really big problem that lies at the base of this discussion is a belief that a perfect world is one in which all live in harmony. As far as I can tell that belief is the single most destructive belief in the world. It certainly has been the source of more marital problems than any other belief! It just isn't how things are. We are each unique in our being and in our understanding of our world view. Just as no two fingerprints are the same, no two personalities are the same. That is the fun part of life. I wouldn't want to marry someone just like me (how boring is that?) and it would almost feeling like talking to myself were I to work with someone just like me.

Believing that we should have no disagreements also stifles creativity. Nothing really creative can come from agreeing with each other. But in disagreeing - and doing so vehemently - we are forced to find a new solution. The more invested we are in the two poles of a disagreement, the greater our creativity has to be. Our inability to engage in disagreements is further exacerbated by our not knowing how to disagree, debate, and find solutions without taking things personally. Our society - the ME society - has taught us that everything is about us. "If you like my clothes, you must like me" translates into "if you don't like my ideas, you must hate me." And now I can tweet you with what I am doing at any given instant. C’mon: Do we really think that our lives are so important that anyone would be interested in knowing that it is time to take a shower or that you are standing in line at the Stop and Shop? I hate to be so blunt, but we need to get over it! Life is not about you – your life is not about you. Life is to be lived in service to and relationship with others. And relationship is all about working out the differences.

I don’t know if my audience heard the message, but the answer to “what if you and your boss disagree?” and “what if the mentor you have is at odds with the person you report to?” was, and still is, forever, “work it out!” That is the stuff of life, and that is just perfect!