26 Serenity

This week has marked for me the pinnacle of being perceived by some as an awkward old git!

I’ve been working in the same organisation now for getting on for 10 years and I’m starting to see the tricks and the sleights of hand that the organisation plays on the people who deserve its benefits but are getting short-changed.

I’ve been highlighting what I see as shoddy practice but the organisation doesn’t like it because it will involve spending more money than it has, and possibly going bust. It puts me in a dilemma because my role is to give impartial advice to all yet I’m finding that my advice is being increasingly disregarded. My obvious instinct is to move away and work in an organisation that will value my advice. Problem being that a new organisation may be more difficult for me to read and understand. Possibly my advice would be as disregarded in a new organisation.

I feel like an ancient oak tree in the grounds of an old estate. All the time that I’m not in the way of anything I can be admired and appreciated. However once there are plans for a building on my site or a by-pass road running right over me then I become a problem. Right now that’s what I’ve become.

There are big plans for developments that will save money but as these plans are being put in place people are loosing out and I’m one of the few people who can see it.

What do I do? Speak out and risk being disregarded to the point that whatever I say is automatically perceived as being unhelpful? Or do allow myself to be relocated away from the eye of the storm and survive to be appreciated by future generations?

I think I know the answer; I just have to keep on working at it!

I suppose it brings up the issue of ego and the very fundamental question ‘who am I’ and to what extent am ‘I’ forged from doing battle and prevailing or from resisting that temptation to fight so I may survive to fight on other days. It is the same calculation that those who attend AA meetings are encouraged to contemplate every week with the Serenity Prayer. Do I have the courage to fight those battles I can win? Do I have the serenity to accept those battles I’m destined to loose? Do I have the wisdom to know the difference?

The more we are able to see ourselves, not as individual characters in our own life soap operas, but as spiritual beings faced with ethical dilemmas, the more we have the freedom to act in ways which are balanced and true. Once we do this we no longer need to act in ways that are simply consistent with how we see our character or the ways others see it.

So the advice this week, my friends, is to build in a little bit of time away from the hurly-burly of life. Take a solitary walk somewhere you won’t bump into a friend, acquaintance or colleague. Just so you can be with yourself. And start to get to know your soul. Who is the true ‘you’? Not the ‘you’ you play for others. Not the ‘you’ others want or expect you to be. Maybe it’s a ‘you’ you are afraid to declare from fear of being rejected. But whoever the ‘you’ is, it is worth giving it some regular breathing space-some ‘me’ time- so when it comes to the big decisions it will be your soul which guides you through to where you need to be.