The Blog
High in the mountains of Bosnia, in an old mortar bunker, my son noticed a message scratched into the stone. He was in the Balkans studying conflict and conflict resolution, and he wrote it down in his journal and made a sketch. He’s been carrying that sketch around for the last two years, deciding, “how important it was” to him.
I didn’t know about the sketch until he showed up with this tattoo on his arm. He’d obviously made his decision. (Fortunately he has a good eye for design and artists.) And unless you can read Bosnian, I’ll translate, “Perhaps we live in paradise and maybe no one cares.”
If you believe what you read lately, 56% of people are unhappy in their jobs. Usually an article about what companies should do to make their employees happier follows that fact. But happiness in organizations is a two way street. It’s also true that part of the responsibility to be happy rests with us. Abraham Lincoln put it another way, “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Old Abe probably could have related to that soldier in the bunker.
We live in a time of radical change. But chaos creates opportunity. So next time you’re frustrated, you may want to step back and think about why. Maybe you have more control over the situation than you think. Maybe you’re in paradise, and you’re just not bothering to care. It’s all a matter of perspective.
