Chapter 11

Our lives are made up, mostly, of habits.  The good ones, the bad ones, everything we do is based on the sum total of our experiences and our behavior based on the results of previous actions reacting to those experiences.  The question is, what’s a good habit and what’s a bad habit?  There are some obvious bads and some obvious goods, but most fall somewhere in the middle, habits that give our lives order and provide a rough framework for everyday living.  We have our favorite meals.  Maybe it’s pizza on Saturday nights, or Wednesday date night with the spouse.  We shower the same way, we brush our teeth the same way, we drive to work the same route.  Most of what we do, we do because we don’t have think about it.  I‘m no exception, when I’m at home I pretty much do the same thing every morning.

My alarm is set for 5:30 although most of the time I automatically wake up at 5:25.  It’s one of those radios that comes on softly and then slowly brings up the volume so you don’t jump out of your skin.  I don’t have to worry about it waking up Peg since she can pretty much sleep through a nuclear detonation.  I don’t have it set to music, I have it set to the same station I’ve been waking up to since I was 14 years old, KDKA.  It’s the only time I listen to the station and it’s really all about the morning format.  News at 5:30, weather and traffic at 5:35, sports at 5:38, and then the thing that drives me from bed 99% of the time at 5:40.

It’s a segment called “And Now You Know”.  They have a reporter who, daily, comes up with some question that is either so obvious that any idiot already knows the answer or is so trite that nobody cares.  At least I don’t care.  Questions like “Do kids really need discipline”, or “Are men and women really different”, or “Should you eat more vegetables”.  She interviews someone who’s written a self-help book and is an “expert” on the subject and she ends with “And now you know”.  Rarely do I make it to the final line. Before she gets there I’m irritated enough to leap from bed to bathroom and my day begins.  However, one day last month I had a 1% morning.

On that morning, my interest was peaked by the question “Can you change your attitude”.  The discussion focused on a recent study that showed that we have the capability to consciously change ourselves from a negative person to positive one.  This, of course, is no surprise to the Christians among us, but this study showed that our brains actually get rewired when we decide to be a “half-full” person.  And it doesn’t take long to happen if we make the choice.

We all have coworkers who are, shall we say, a challenge.  They’re the wet blankets, the whiners, the naysayers, the gossips.  They bring the work place down and they have a nearly exponentially negative affect on everything you’re trying to do and they can quickly destroy an organization.  Sadly, some people don’t know that’s what they are.  Maybe they grew up in a family where everyone was that way.  Maybe they have a spouse who drags them down, or maybe they just evolved into it.   The other option is that they’ve made an intentional choice to be that way and those are the ones that do the most damage.  They enjoy undermining anything positive and love to see others as miserable as themselves.  They’re the people that I have the least amount of patience with.

The question is, how do we deal with them?  I’ve always preferred the “overwhelm them with kindness” approach.  Be the ying to their yang.  When they get overly negative, get overly positive.  Never lower yourself to their level and always take the high road.  Immediately squelch negative rumors with positive facts.  Be consistent, positive, a good example, and supportive to a fault even when you really want to slap them.  You can wear most of them down and a positive attitude is contagious.  Occasionally nothing works and if they become a threat to the organization then, if you’re in a position to make a change, you might have to “encourage” to move on.  If they really don’t like what they’re doing then maybe they should find something they do like.  Regretfully, some people will never find something or someplace they like.  If only we could rewire their brains it would be easier but all we can do is let them know how the rest of the world perceives them and let them make the choice to change on their own.  We can give them the opportunity and support but it’s really up to them.

Recent studies show that it takes between 21 and 66 days, based on complexity, for something to  become a habit and the behavior study showed that in as early as 6 weeks you can modify neural pathways to change from negative to positive. All I can recommend is that you to look in the mirror, listen to yourself, try to see how others see you, and make a choice.