Thinking Outside the Box

Here is a picture taken at a colleague’s wedding last week. I have been working at my present company for almost three years and I have never been happier. (Touchwood)

But career life was not always this happy. In my life, I have met people who have not been very appreciative of my presence in this world. They are the ones that provide those negative vibes that I tend to avoid. Every time one of us meets such a person, do we really sit back and reflect why these people do what they do, and why to us? In this fast paced life, I hardly have time to deal with people and their problems. But what if the problem lies with us?

The weirdest things happened to me after I got back to town and got myself a good job. Initially, people who appeared friendly, and who in fact I had known from before, suddenly besieged me into an arena filled with negative vibes that threw me off balance. I tried everything possible to get back into their acceptable books, but nothing deemed successful, not even when I remembered birthdays, wedding ceremonies and so on.

With internal objection from certain colleagues, I had several incidences that had me reduced to tears in an attempt to fit in. I had my computer wires dismantled, username on my logon address changed slightly so that I was not aware of it at moments of emergency. I have been alienated from social groups at the workplace, and when I tried being friendly I was looked upon with ironic indifference. I was talked about in whispers and I was avoided in public places.

After so many years now, after joining a new company, whenever I go back to visit my ex colleagues, not only are they really friendly but they actually are very nice. So, finally I have learnt that whatever the cause was for their initial behavior while I was working there, it was not because of who I was.

Every time we face disapproval, our instant thought is to take it personally, but over time, I have learnt that things are usually not personal. There might be an event, an occasion or a situation that could be causing this behavior from others. So, before we force ourselves to fall prey to negative feelings and self demotivation, we should try to "think outside the box".

"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart." (Anne Frank, 1929-45, German Jewish diarist and holocaust victim, from The Diary of Anne Frank, entry dated 15 July 1944.)