Lawrence Welk and Orson Welles

Lawrence Welk and Orson Welles

Today I drew the team-player card. I love it when I draw cards that fit what I’m noticing.

Last week, the theme at my  Clark Kent job was Team-Playing. The upshot was that, because one co-worker refuses to play by the rules, nine of us spent more than fifteen hours trying to fix something that should have been taken care of in about one hour. Yikes.

As I have worked with this person, one of my “best-teachers,” you know, a person who makes things difficult for you until you figure out your lessons to be learned, I have recognized my cowboy tendencies, and seen over and over that in a group environment, they more often than not make trouble, not just for me, but for the group.

I love my cowboy ways; freedom of thought, creativity, my enjoyment of my own company. But I have also learned that I need you. And if I want to keep you around, I need to make sure that we are working together, so to speak, for common goals.

On the one hand, that strikes me as so “Lawrence Welk”; being a cowboy is so much cooler, especially the boots.

On the other hand, my goals have to do with living a happy life, and if my being a cowboy makes strife for you, that’s kind of antithetical to what I want.

That means that if I want to be happy, I need to be aware of you and your needs. My happiness is contingent upon your happiness, in some weird way.

On the one hand, I am the only road to my own happiness, and I can choose it whenever I wish.

On the other hand, because I live in communities; family, friends, co-workers, colleagues, and so on; I need to be aware of your needs, the group rules, the group structure, and then to help change it if it isn’t serving most of us, and to leave if the common good doesn’t include me.

Uh oh. Looks like part of my being happy will come about from being a good citizen. That sounds so “Orson Welles. “

On the third hand, I can’t make you happy, I can only help create a space that you could be happy in. Sigh. This all seems rather complicated.

I am responsible for my happiness, but I am responsible to you, to help create a space where our happiness can thrive. Well, if Tibetan monks can do it in nasty prisons, I should be able to do it here, in my cushy life.

So it looks like I have a big responsibility. I need to choose my teams carefully. I need to choose teams that support me in my journey of being a happy grown up. I need to choose teams with players who get that we, each of us, is responsible for our own joy, and health, and wealth and so on. If this team doesn’t support my well being, I need to take the risk of leaving it, of having to be a cowboy (not so much fun when I have to do it. That’s happened before. I lived through it) and look for the new team. And when I find that new team, I need to commit.

I can still wear the cool boots at home.

How have I changed from demanding you do it my way, to doing what’s best for my teams?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 03302013