Several days ago, I attended a funeral of an old colleague of mine. What made it sad was not that he died unexpectedly, but what a positive impact he had on those lives he was in touch with throughout his life, especially his wife, children, relatives, and close friends – and that he couldn’t extend his impact on these individuals.
Looking back in my past relationship with this individual, I didn’t have a very deep relationship but he was someone who I respected. In many circumstances I didn’t quite see eye to eye with this individual and even after I parted ways with the company, I didn’t really keep in touch other than the usual LinkedIn updates I would receive about connections he had made and skills attained.
However, what I learned from attending his funeral is that connections are not time bound. It’s not like we really leave a relationship in our past. It’s not like somebody who enters our life, whether it be a close friend or acquaintance can be forgotten. The reason is because we all have a past and in the past these individuals make up our life events that get stored in our memory. Sometimes this memory is very vivid and sometimes extremely faint to the point of being irretrievable – but it is still there and can get uprooted anytime.
What this means is that the individual actually becomes part of your life’s existence. That person is in your life and somehow has contributed to making some sort of impact to your character through a life situation even as simple as buying groceries, driving a car, or working on a job.
The impact that we receive from others is the most critical aspect about ourselves that we continuously overlook. This is the case as we are always thinking about the bad situations we have with some individuals and try to forget those individuals. I was looking around the funeral hall and saw many of my ex-colleagues who I must admit didn’t like the way this individual managed the practice and handled day-to-day affairs. Some of these individuals didn’t even have positive things to say about him at one point. Even I was disappointed about the way he handled some of the projects I worked on with him.
However, all of this goes away when the person is no longer with us. We stop associating what wrongs, if any, this person caused us. We can’t talk bad about them because they are no longer in our presence. They are no longer negatively impacting our conscience. We now start to celebrate their life and all the good things about them.
In hindsight, we are actually blind to the impact any person has on our lives and what that impact has on our mindset and future actions. We are actually scared by a negative action performed by an individual in a given situation and are not able to separate the action that an individual takes on us from the individual itself. We look at the action, again driven by a situation, as part of the character of the individual – but at the core this person is innocent, only acting in their best interest, not yours, confined to a closely-bound situational environment.
Look at it more closely to what I have become today as a result of my association with my colleague. This individual’s initial decision of resistance drove me to work harder so I climbed the ladder. This individual gave me the spark to drive forward with my interest in entrepreneurship. This person gave me an opportunity to build a fire within myself to make a better situation of what I had. His what-I-thought “negativity” toward me was actually a positive subliminal driver fueling my change.
What I learned from this experience:
- Celebrate every person that you meet in your life. You never know when will be the last time you see them. This can be the person loading the groceries in your car, a customer service representative on the phone, a close family member, or a friend on the phone.
- Don’t let your mind get clouded by negativity thrown your way by anyone. These actions are situationally-driven and can change instantly to positive actions if the situation is right for them.
- Don’t say or think negatively about any person. Remember all people have an impact on you – whether positive or negative. If you receive bad customer service you can simply stop shopping at a company as an action. At least treat the customer service representative with respect as they may just be having a bad day – but don’t attack their character by calling them names.
- Treat the person and their action toward you as two separate entities. Actions can be absorbed, analyze and dealt with. Don’t attack the character of the person based on his action as it is extremely personal.
I am grateful for the impact my colleague has had on me. While he is no longer alive, I am happy that I can look toward his many positive characteristics that have not just influenced me, but many around him. May he rest in peace.