Keep Going, Little Chick!
Yeah, let’s get inspirational.
I’m not the best at pep talks. In my past life, I was obviously not a cheerleader since my bones don’t brim with the ooze of optimism. (And, not gonna lie, I don’t have the flexibility and ease of motion that a cheerleader would need to have.)
But sometimes I feel like I need to look on the bright side of things just to stay somewhat sane in an increasingly chaotic world. I’ve found it takes far more energy to be the “glass half-full” kind of person than the opposite of “glass half-empty.”
I’ve been reprimanded (lightly) in the past that I am just a tad too much on the side of doomsaying and catastrophizing. Whenever I’ve had team member meetings at various jobs I’ve had, I was never the one to come up with a rousing speech to get my team members in gear as far as motivation and morale. That’s definitely not one of my strong suits.
However — I do have a knack for talking people — individually — down from a ledge. (Why I can’t do the same for myself, I’ve no idea.) If someone’s close to losing their marbles over something, I can calmly get them through with a few well-chosen words. I may not be able to save worlds, but I can be helpful when someone else needs a “reframing” moment.
I think the rationale comes from my time with my mother, who sometimes experienced panic attacks throughout her life. She also had quite the temper, so I defused a number of situations for her — and around her — in that regard too.
What’s my point of all this? I think we all need to take a step back and just breathe for a moment. Our world may be teetering on the edge of scenarios from which there may be no turning back, but human history has made it through a lot of tumult from all sides. We’re not each other’s enemies, no matter how much politics would like us to skew that way, and we work together far better than we do in standing against each other. The world isn’t as black-and-white as our leaders may want us to believe.
Beyond the politics of the moment, though, I think we need to be more patient with each other. So many people seem to go into a rage over silly things, and it’s getting harder and harder to have simple conversations before they migrate over to the “danger zones” of hot-button…
