Friday Reflections

If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Taipei

 
Point to Ponder:

“Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” - Lou Holtz.

 
Story Line: If it is Tuesday it must be Taipei - by Anand Shah

Many a time, while travelling thorough many countries in a short time, I wake up in the morning wondering what country could I be in? Inside the four walls of the hotel room, I look in the itinerary and try to match the day of the week to the place I am supposed to be in and EUREKA!

So during my recent 6 countries/16 days trip, It was Tuesday - so it was Taipei. My colleague and I went to the airport to take an afternoon flight to Seoul.

While checking in for Asiana Airlines flight, we noticed that the Taiwanese agent at the check-in counter seemed incredibly happy and upbeat. Every question was answered with a smiling face and every request was handled with enthusiasm. I mentioned that one of the straps on my bag was broken. “No problem, let me try to fix it”. When it did not work, she brought red tape and wrapped it around the broken strap.  She told me that she did it so that the baggage handler would not try to hold it there and drop it.

While giving us our boarding pass with her ever smiling face, she asked “Is there any other question or help that you need?”

I asked “Are you always like this? Smiling and enthusiastic?”

She replied, “Why not?”

 

Reflection:

As many of you know, Friday Reflections are stories of such people that I have met, stories I have heard or read, experiences I have encountered and wisdom that I have acquired in this journey. The stories have been shared for 26 years with our children and for the past seven years through the internet with friends around the world; in the spirit of some great wisdom from the movie City of Joy: “Things that are given away are never lost.”

To Sir, with Love

POINT TO PONDER:
 
If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals. -J.K. Rowling
 
 
STORYLINE: by Rajiv Shah

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to see Sidney Poitier's turn in “To Sir, with Love.” Made in 1967 and following the story of a Communication Engineer out of work and taking on a job at a rough London high school to survive; Sidney Poitier's character is forced to confront a group of kids that don't hold any respect for his degree, his teachings, or themselves.

Constantly trying to “teach” them something better, to improve on themselves, and to respect him as a teacher – Poitier's character finds unbearable resistance that finally culminates with the students throwing a water balloon at his head and burning a tampon on the classroom heater.

Finally exploding at his students and calling the girls in the classroom 'sluts,' Poitier retreats to the teachers room to cool down. As he does he is hit with a realization: he has been treating them 'as kids' and as such, they have acted in accord with his expectations.

Returning to the classroom, he lays down the new rules. They will from now on treat each other as equals, not as an adult to child or teacher to student. Of course what follows is a blossoming relationship built from mutual respect.
 
 
REFLECTION:
 
If you have not seen the film, it's currently streaming on Netflix. What I found interesting about this film, and the pivotal scene mentioned, is not the feel good quality of the film (which can be outmoded at times) but the approach Poitier's character takes with his students.

He treats them according to their titles, their given positions, as kids from the ghettos of London. They in turn act accordingly. Only when he is able to look past his position as an educated teacher/adult, and treat them as equals is he able to really communicate and work with them.

Maybe we can take this lesson into our own work environments? How often do we find ourselves acting according to our position and treating others based on theirs? Perhaps if we adjust our attitudes, and the way we treat each other and our positions, we can increase productivity and cooperation.

If you have your own stories that relate to this week's reflection, about how another has treated you and how you acted in response - or if you were the one unknowingly treating someone based on position - please post them in the comments section.

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer

 

POINT TO PONDER:

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." -Albert Einstein

STORYLINE - by Rajiv Shah:

Over the weekend I attended a conference where the head speaker was one of the most successful coaches in college football history, Bobby Bowden. The head coach for Florida State University, Bobby has 2 championships under his belt and has the second most wins for a head coach in college football history.

When asked what led to all those victories, Bowden paused for a long moment.

“It was the ability to look at problems as opportunities,” he finally responded.

“Life is full of problems, it is really what it is about, and the ones that succeed are the ones that can take those problems and find ways to solve them.”

 

REFLECTION: It was a simple statement but one that contained much power. There are many ways to address a problem: avoid, deny, accept, complain, blame someone else as the cause, or we can confront it head on and try to solve it. Everyone has challenges and problems, what we do with them is the test of what we are made of and who we are.

Are some birds meant to be free?

POINT TO PONDER:

Freedom isn't free.


STORYLINE - by Rajiv Shah:

In the spirit of Independence Day (July 4th) here in the United States, we have chosen to reflect on the topic of freedom. Specifically, if some birds are meant to be caged or let out to spread their wings on mighty winds. It seems we would all like to be free birds, gracefully riding on the wind to far off destinations, determined to chase the summer no matter how far we must go. For a lot of us, our summer is a picture enshrined as our laptop screen saver.  Perhaps that is enough.

Which brings me to the story of Christopher McCandless – a bright, Emory educated, twenty-two year old. Christopher had graduated with a degree in history and anthropology. Christopher had done very well and was well supported by his upper-middle class family and friends. Given $47,000 as a present by a family friend for his post graduate law degree, Christopher was motivated by something else. The life his family had given him, and what he believed to be an “empty materialism” left him wanting something more, often to the bafflement of his parents and friends.

He had read Thoreau and Jack London while in college and dreamed of the open road, the wilderness, and more specifically, the Alaskan frontier. In May of 1990, Christopher donated $24,000 of that $47,000 gift to a hunger organization and hit the road. The goal was to live in solitude, in peace amongst the wilderness in which he could reflect and contemplate. He left without ever telling his family or friends where he was going, just hit the road and never looked back.

Along the way he journeyed across Arizona, California, and South Dakota. He kayaked successfully down the Colorado river and worked in a grain elevator. He relied on himself for his food – foraging, hunting, and sometimes accepting a meal from a kind stranger. He kept a journey of his travels often noting the beauty he encountered in the wild, subsisting on minimal supplies and the peace he found in solitude. It was lonely but peaceful and McCandless hitchhiked across Canada, finally arriving at the one place he always dreamed of, Alaska. It was in Fairbanks on April 28th, 1992 that he was last seen and Christopher disappeared deep into the remote wilderness of the unforgiving Alaskan terrain.

His body was found by a local hunter wrapped in a sleeping bag in an abandoned bus on September 6, 1992. He weighed 67 pounds. He had finally found the freedom and solitude he had been seeking. For his last known journal entry before his death, McCandless tore out a page from Louis L'Amour's memoir, “Education of a Wandering Man,” containing a poem by Robinson Jeffers titled, “Wise Men in their Bad Hours.” The poem read:

Death's a fierce meadowlark: but to die having made
Something more equal to centuries
Than muscle and bone, is mostly to shed weakness.
The mountains are dead stone, the people
Admire or hate their stature, their insolent quietness,
The mountains are not softened or troubled
And a few dead men's thoughts have the same temper.

On the other side of the page Christopher McCandless wrote: "I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!"

REFLECTION:

I wrote this article not so we could judge Christopher McCandless (though I'm positive it's almost impossible not to considering his death) but not to celebrate him either.  For Christopher McCandless pursued his freedom and paid the price for it – with the very ideals that built this country, an ideal for a better way of life, his way of life, even though the road there was paved with hardship and ultimately, his demise. 

If we are to live the life we want, to live in our own freedom, we must pay the price. The price is often heavy, for ourselves as well as the ones we love. Christopher McCandless was portrayed as a hero in the book and respective film about his life, “Into the Wild,” but he is also seen as a selfish and foolish one as well. It all depends on your outlook, your own values. So is it worth it? That depends on how you look at this story – as an account of a man living life on his own terms or as a man who met a haunting, tragic death.