We can't believe that it has been a month since our last post. Life happens around us often when we are not taking notice.
But while it whirs around us we sometimes get these quiet moments and what can happen in those moments is reflect on what is important, what has shaped us and what we regret...what we fear.
For me when I was younger many years ago something happened that influenced the construction of my personal identity and in time was to shape who I was as an individual.
Thirty-four years later, I am: a husband, a father, a driven and competitive individual,motivated by; making a difference in my career and social life, but also by; a fear of failure and a constant drive for being the best I can be. That drive has delivered a comfortable upper-middle class existence; a residence in the leafy east towards the Yarra Valley, and an office, in the financial hub of Melbourne.
My career has provided the financial freedom to embark on further education, adding to a university degree and postgraduate qualifications in financial services. As I reflect now, it seems that I have defied, through design,
research that points to poor outcomes for people who have experienced what I did. It seems I fought to join Weber’s concept of ‘party’ to effect power over my social outcomes, seeking class and status to reach my goals (Back et al,
2012, p. 51). My reflection constantly demands a response to the question of how different my
life may have been.
But because of who I was, I attracted certain people in my life and good or bad they were part of my healing.
Interestingly my relationships ran a course where they were with people who offered emotional availability and care or where they themselves needed my help. George Herbert Mead argued that people take on identities that we base on our participation in networks of social relationships and related roles (Merolla et al, 2012, p. 149). How we determine our sense of self is based therefore on social experience. My social experience of relationships would not have been as diverse and my personality would surely have changed as a consequence. The personalities I encountered allow me today to appreciate another persons point of view. Their problems (that I often sought out), from eating disorders, mental health issues, CSA and rape survivors, provided me with a sense of understanding of what real challenges and adversity are. Perspective was a gift that these people gave to me. A life without a deep perspective of the best and worst of human beings is what I may have lived without my own traumatic experiences.
It is that appreciation of the experience of others that has allowed me to excel in my career. Fundamentally my career has been built around understanding peoples motivations and drivers and why they make the decisions that they do. My role involves me coaching and mentoring a sales team in financial services and I am called upon to deliver presentations about positive customer experiences and how to create them.
In Chris Gardner’s book, ‘Start Where You Are’, Chris, passes the reader some advice:
“…to anyone in real crisis …find a place of calmness and stillness …where you can gain some perspective. Only with a reasoned outlook can you find the solutions and empowerment that are already there” (Gardner 2010, p. 58).
When I reflect on the experiences that make me who I am, I think of Foucault who argued that we are the product of discourses without which there is prior no essential self (Back et al,2012, p. 95). The social experiences of my life, have developed the characteristics of what makes me, me (Macionis & Plummer 2012, p. 208). I am grateful for where I am in life, for the people I have met and the experiences I have had. It seems incredulous that I could ever
look at my experience that way. But finally I can say “Peace! Be Still” (Gardner 2010, p. 61) and understand in that moment the rich perspective my life experience has given me.
