When your Children were young (or when you were young), they may have asked an adult a question about why something was the way it was, and the adult would answer. They would ask why again, and then the adult would answer, and they'd ask why again, but why, but why, until they got right down to the point they wanted to know about.
I wonder if, as we get older and more cynical and weather-beaten, we forget to ask that question, and we forget to take it to its conclusion.
I see many people who seem to be very unhappy in many aspects of my life and work.
I talk to patients; I look at the team; I speak to other dentists.
They don't seem to be getting what they want because I think they seem to be trying to just compare themselves to what everybody else seems to be trying to get, which doesn't seem to be what they want either.
And so, they fall into that trap of comparison being the thief of joy and never ask themselves why they're doing this now.
I have a white stone that sits on my desk. I've written about this here many times, but essentially, it came from a passage in the Bible in the Book of Revelation, which was introduced to me by someone called Charles Handy, a social philosopher and business commentator from the 1990s and 2000s.
The point of the white stone (as in the Book of Revelation) is there is a name written on the underside of the stone, and you only discover it when you get to the end when you have, in fact, found yourself.
And now, while that sounds like a load of ethereal nonsense, it becomes more and more powerful the further you go and explore the concept.
It is, in fact, about trying never to meet the person you might have been, never to meet the person you could have become, and trying every day to become the person you could become.
And so when we make decisions in our lives, the big ones, the small ones, the ones about money, the ones about relationships, we can always go back to why and then when we find an answer, ask why again and again.
Why am I stuck in this job that is making me unhappy? What is the reason to grind this out as hard as this? Is it just about money, or do I have enough money, or can I manage on less money? Can I work somewhere that is better or, nicer or more fulfilling? Can I work on something I'm supposed to work on, not something I found myself working on because I thought it paid me more?
What about the people I associate with, the people I meet? Are they feeding me, or are they eating me? Is this group of people leading me in the wrong direction?
I always pick up the white stone in my office when I have difficult decisions to make or things to do or when things are not going the way I would like.
I ask myself if I'm still supposed to be here if this is taking me to a place which might turn me into the person that I wish I could become because if it is not, then it is tragically at odds with my values.
Although that may sound like a middle-class Western thing that we have the privilege to look at and think about, I am a middle-class Western person, and I don't have to scramble around for something to eat or to run away from the man with the guns, and that is a huge privilege that allows me to think about things on a higher level.
Why are we not teaching this to our Children?
Why are we teaching our children that life is about comparing themselves to someone else to make sure they have as much or more than them?
That is a fast track to an even more broken society?
Blog Post Number - 3652
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