What Role Are You Playing in Life?
Whether its at home, in communities, or in the workplace, if we aren't careful and observant we can find ourselves playing roles & positions that we don't desire to be in.
Do you know where you’re going to? Do you like the things that life is showing you? Where are you going to? Do you know?
Diana Ross
Around this time last year, I had the honor of giving a five-minute speech to Des Moines, Iowa business leaders to inspire them to think differently in how they conduct business. While this short talk was dedicated to a specific group, check out the opening parable in this speech and think about how it may apply to you and how you live your life.
For those of you who desire to be leaders in your offices, communities, or homes, think about who you are in the parable…
Are you the silent bird?
“Be who you are, say what you feel
Cause those who mind don't matter, those who matter don't mind.”
Satsang
Role: Someone who is aware of a problem or opportunity but fails to act or speak up.
Questions:
Are you aware of issues or opportunities in your home, workplace, or community that you're not addressing?
What's preventing you from speaking up or taking action?
How can you overcome your fear or hesitation?
Do you see what’s about to happen in your life, on the job, and in your relationships? Do you have the ability to speak yet remain silent, slowly watching the demise of your relationships?
Holding our tongues is not going to save us from the challenges in our lives. I recently joined a group that has something called Rule Zero: if something feels uncomfortable or awkward to say, even if it may hurt the other person’s feelings, you must find a way to express it if you care about the relationship and want it to last. It’s about having the courage to voice the hard, scary things—the proverbial “elephants in the room.”
Some of us are so in our heads, forgetting that the purpose of the mind is the ability to think and to ultimately take action on those thoughts. As a recent divorcee, one of the big lessons I learned from my marriage was that if I have a narrative or thought in my head that I can’t express to my partner, the relationship is doomed. This applies to any relationship: if we can’t properly express ourselves to the people we engage with regularly, the relationship will eventually come tumbling down, whether now or 10 years from now.
Don’t remain silent about the things that matter to you. Your very life depends on making your voice heard.
Are you the unquestioning spouse?
“Did you improve on the design? Did you do somethin' new?
Well, your name ain't on the guest list, who brung you?”
Lupe Fiasco
Role: Someone who follows orders or expectations without critical thinking or questioning.
Questions:
Are you blindly following rules or expectations without considering the potential consequences or alternatives?
How can you develop your critical thinking skills and learn to question the status quo?
What role can you play in challenging outdated systems or processes to be an asset to the people in your life?
Sometimes in life, we may find ourselves in a funk or groove where we play a role without thinking, “Why am I doing this?” Many times in our minds, we believe that people have placed us in imaginary boxes, limiting our capacities to do things, and we just follow suit, playing the role we believe people think we should be playing. When we place ourselves in imaginary boxes, we blind ourselves to the possibilities of new realities and alternate destinities. This is your life; don’t play a passive role in the one thing you truly have ownership over.
As a person who has interviewed, hired, and employed others, I have found that lots of people today lack the ability to think critically and fail to utilize their supercomputer brains to be creative and solve problems. If they encounter problems, they don't ask questions. They just do what they're told to do even if the circumstances require them to think beyond the original instructions they were given: Modern-day robots. In this new age of artificial intelligence and automation, those who cannot utilize critical thinking skills will be replaced. Don't blindly engage in activities if you want your life to improve. You should always ask, “Why am I doing this, and how does this benefit me and those I love or work with?” The failure to think critically about your life and role may cause you to make crucial mistakes that may be difficult to recover from.
Are you the man searching afar?
This, then, is the ultimate challenge. Where are we to look for our survival, for the answers to questions which have never before been posed? We must look first to Almighty God, who has raised man above the animals and endowed him with intelligence and reason…And we must look into ourselves, into the depths of our souls. We must become something we have never been and for which our education and experience and environment have ill-prepared us.
Emperor Haile Selassie I
Role: Someone who seeks solutions outside themselves or their immediate surroundings.
Questions:
Are you looking for solutions to problems in your life or community without considering the resources and potential within your reach?
How can you become more self-aware and recognize the strengths and opportunities within your own environment?
What steps can you take to tap into the potential of your home, workplace, or community?
Like the man in the story, many of us search here, there, and everywhere, looking for what we believe will make us happy at home, work, or in the world. When we acquire those things that we think will make us happy, we become content for a moment, but soon, we begin the process again of searching for other things that will bring us happiness. Some of us even do this with our work teams; we search for new employees, hoping that they have the flashy credentials to do the job when the best person for the job is a person who’s probably doing the job on a temporary or limited basis right now. It isn’t until things break down in our lives or at work that we pause, reflect, and look within to find that everything we needed was inside. Contentment is always much closer than we think.
If you are discontent with your present state in life, take a moment to look at yourself before you go searching for happiness on the outside. What am I doing to add to my discontent? What’s the root of why I feel the way that I feel? Is the answer to things I need truly out there in the world?
Only by looking within can we get to the root of our issues and discover what it is that we truly need.
Wait! There was one more person in the story…Did you catch it???
The pet store owner.
My purpose is worthless if it's without service.
Satsang
Role: Someone who goes above and beyond to help others, even when it doesn't benefit them directly.
Questions:
How can you be more proactive in helping others, even when it doesn't directly benefit you?
What are the rewards of selfless service?
How can you inspire others to follow your example?
Many times, we find ourselves stuck wondering, “What’s the point of it all?” I have definitely had a nihilistic point of view many times in my life, and it is at those points that I find inspiration in engaging and being of service to others, whether it is my nieces and nephews (I met someone recently who called them “niblings”), friends, or people in my community. Every time I decenter myself and be of service to those around me, it has reaffirmed the saying that “we find ourselves in our service to others.”
The most essential thing in life is relationships: our relationship with the planet (our home), ourselves, and others. Without relationships, life is meaningless. Unfortunately, in this capitalistic world of exploitation and Eurocentric supremacy, we have turned into a transactional society of “what’s in it for me?” The pet store owner is the perfect foil to the argument that I will only contribute if I get something out of it.
The pet store owner didn’t have to help the man. He didn’t have the bird in his shop, so financially, there was no need to call around and identify where the bird was. He could have essentially said, “Sorry, I can’t help you,” and most people would not have blamed him for that. But the pet store owner went the extra mile and helped the man identify where the bird was. In a perfect world, the man would have gone home, and he and his spouse would have enjoyed the company of a bird that could speak five languages, and maybe the man would have spoken a good word about this pet store owner who would have helped him find the bird. But life never goes exactly as we envision it. We can’t control the actions of other people, only ourselves. But because of the actions of the pet store owner, you can best believe that after the man got over his initial shock, one of the first things he did was call that pet store owner back, and he will never forget the kindness of the person who helped him in his quest.
Your kindness has the ability to change the lives of people. To what extent, we may never know, but if we want a kinder, gentler world, we must practice kindness even if it means we aren’t the primary beneficiaries.
Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a better person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Some Levity: All Legs Matter by Amii James
Song of the Week: Let’s Seize the Time by Jimmy Cliff
This Week’s Challenge:
Reflect on the characters in the story. Who are you in the story? Who do you want to be?
The Last Word: Never Let Me Down by J. Ivy