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In the 1960's, an executive at IBM made a decision that ended up losing the company $10 million. The CEO of IBM, Tom Watson, summoned the offending executive to his office at corporate headquarters.
Watson asked the man, "Do you know why I called you here?"
Knowing of Watson's legendary temper, the man replied: "I assume you're going to fire me."
"Fire you?" Watson asked. "Why? I've already spent $10 million educating you."
I tip my hat, and have no doubt that Mr. Watson wanted his exec to "learn" lessons most advantageous--the connection between the risk of failure and success, that playing it safe isn't always the best choice and there are times when two steps back is the right move. But I'm hardly the resource for mining business advice.
This story struck me for another reason. Because I know what it is like to feel the weight of a lost opportunity, or love, or choice, or investment, or gift, or relationship.
And then I compound the weight by telling myself that it will all be okay if only I learn the right lessons.
That is the temptation isn't it?
We all have a propensity for tidiness hard-wired into our cultural DNA.
So here's the deal: While I'm all for business motivation, I wonder, can we enjoy--take delight in--this story without the compulsion to read into it?
Maybe, just maybe, with all the energy I give to making certain my life pencils out (as if our life is a Power Point presentation for public opinion), I miss the point that there are times when waste is precisely what may be called for--to love or give or render or write or paint or embrace or tell or pray or feel. Wantonly. Profligately. Extravagantly.
Is it possible that our concentration on managing life robs us of the freedom to risk wholeheartedly and fail with equal abandon?
What is missing from many of our days is a true sense that we are
enjoying the lives we are living. Sarah Ban Breathnach
I enjoy this out-of-the-box take of the Sermon on the Mount.
And Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit."
And Simon Peter said, "Do we have to write this down?"
Yesterday, I didn't lose anyone $10 million, but I did "lose" a day. Well, that's not precisely accurate.
I lost the day I had in my mind.
I lost the day I had in my plans.
A computer glitch shut down Alaska Airlines. I spent 12 hours in the SeaTac airport, walking in circles and muttering, wondering why my patience was wearing thin when I had been gifted an empty day.
Add to that, the sticky wicket in our western mindset requiring that we coerce meaning from anything that goes amiss or askew. "It all happened for a reason," we tell ourselves.
"You must have learned a lot from that day," someone said to me cheerfully today.
"Yes," I told them. "I learned that regardless of my fretting, I would eventually get to my destination. And I learned that my baggage would arrive safely in Phoenix. Which is fine, except that I'm not in Phoenix. I had no idea I would learn so much."
This is all fresh in my mind as I lectured last week on finding beauty in life's imperfections. To make our life beautiful--especially in the midst of blotches, brokenness and blunders--requires a paradigm shift. We need to look at life differently. It means giving up our need for perfection. It means finding God's grace in broken things. It means accepting the blunders as a part of the whole of our life. And it means taking ourselves a lot less seriously.
I suppose that the "figuring out" is a way of feeling like we are in control, keeping vulnerability at bay.
When in doubt, I can always count on Jimmy Buffett. When the music is cranked up, the sediment of the day slowly settles.
I bought a cheap watch from the crazy man
Floating down canal
It doesn't use numbers or moving hands
It always just says now
Now you may be thinking that I was had
But this watch is never wrong
And If I have trouble the warranty said
Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On
On Saturday I had been looking forward to my leisurely afternoon drive--Highway 101--from Los Angeles to the California Central Coast. But at dusk I was still stuck in the Seattle airport. And it didn't help matters that a dark canopy cloaks the sky, exaggerating the gloom. As I sit bemoaning my ill fate, staring out toward the west and the Olympic mountains, the sun slips beneath the cloud canopy, sliding down toward the horizon. A serendipity I did not expect, as the sunset kaleidoscope began, tinting and tingeing the clouds goldenrod and peach and light lavender.
Maybe that's the lesson. Put your pen down. Watch the sunset.
People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive. . .of the rapture of being alive. Joseph Campbell
(1) The IBM story from journalist Paul B. Carroll, adapted in the book Switch
(2) Breathe in, breathe out, move on, lyrics by Jimmy Buffett
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