Work Hard and Be Nice To People

Well there's always time

On the telephone line

To talk about things to come

Sweet dreams and fine machines

In pieces on the ground.

- James Taylor

I've been talking a lot about living intentionally. Like anything in life, it's pretty easy to talk about. It's a lot harder to actually do. The thing about life is that no plan survives reality. In the first few weeks of the year, my time has been taken up by a lot of unforeseen, but important and joyous, work. Some progress has been made on the goals, but there are some things that I find are dropping off.

I have found that having a theme for the year helps me fixate on the ultimately important thing that you want to be accomplishing this year in the face of everything that comes up in your life. My theme for 2011 is the title of this post: Work Hard and Be Nice to People.

I plan on acquiring and framing this poster and placing it above the head board of my bed. In the meantime I have it on my DAYTUM tracker, along with everything else that I'm tracking for my life this year.

This is not an original theme and it is borrowed from one of my mentors but I find it highly impactful for me this year. Why? Because it's hard to do. Working hard requires focus and lots of calories to keep up with the mental and physical pace. Being nice requires that you be emotionally and mentally flexible in the face of approaching deadlines that competing demands that run counter to your plans.

I'm fairly decent at working hard. I'm fairly decent at being a decent human (I haven't always been) with the caveat that I'm well rested and not focused on fulfilling the sometimes complex web of my commitments. It's no secret that I have a lot of opportunity to improve my ability to have both of those present in the same space.

As this will be another year of transition, renewal, hard work and growth I must remember that anyone can work hard and that it doesn't take much work to be a rigid personality. The goal is to have fun, build beautiful things and contribute positively to the people and institutions around me. People aren't seemingly bureaucratic, opaque or difficult for the sake of being those things but rather simply they are being humans in the face of what's going on in their lives.

No one is perfect at this and I am not implying that this new commitment is some unrealistic notion of a perfect behavior around this commitment. Sometimes I'm not going to as work hard as I could or should. I'm also not going to be as nice I'd hope to be. But it would be a direct contradiction if I stated a commitment to contributing to others and go off working hard without being nice to people. It's my opinion that working hard and neglecting being generative in my engagement with others would be akin to riding a cycling criterium race and never moving out of my granny gear: I'm definitely working hard but I'm also not getting to the finish line any time soon.

The point is this: no amount of working hard can overcome being a constantly unpleasant person.

I know people who are missing out on some very beneficial personal and professional relationships because they are unaware that they occur as cruel individuals. The sad thing is that people get confused about why their efforts don't yield the results they expect. It'd be like me riding in my granny gear and making up some story about how the rest of the cyclists are dropping me from the peloton because they are bureaucratic, opaque, difficult or stupid. Even sadder is that sometimes some people are more committed to being right about the story they make up rather than come to grips that they are a jackass. It sucks, but it happens.

So in closing: I'm committed to working hard in service of building beautiful, durable institutions that, by definition, leave people inspired and enlivened and keep in mind that everyone is fighting their own uphill battle, not trying to prevent me from accomplishing the possibilities that I see in the world. Easier said than done. But that doesn't mean it isn't worth committing to. Also, feel free to tell me when I'm dropping down to my granny gear - I don't want to get dropped.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it: