Playing Well With Others

I’ve learned two very important lessons during my life. This year, their importance has become more profound. Learning the lessons required unlearning some lessons from childhood. Don’t get me wrong. The childhood lessons were great and gave me access to an amazing life. And those lessons could only take me so far.

The first lesson I am learning (because I have to learn it newly, every time) is to make requests for what I want and what will forward my commitments ~ rather than making requests for what I think I deserve. The childhood lesson centered on two aspects ~ that I needed to earn what I got. That may have meant that I didn’t get to play if I didn’t go to school ~ or that I needed to work hard for rewards and recognition and that life would not hand anything to me. Through practice, I learned to work hard. I learned to do what was right. I learned that life was going to give me what I earned and not a bit more. It could be that I also learned to not believe in miracles; after all, how do you earn a miracle?

The second lesson I am learning is that I cannot do it alone. What ‘it’ is doesn’t matter. There are very few things in life that cannot be accomplished with only my effort. In the process of transitioning my career into something that inspires and moves me, I have been reaching out and building teams ~ getting people on the bandwagon, so to speak. As the oldest in my family, I learned to do for myself, and to then take care of others. While that has served me well in establishing my usefulness and ‘worthiness’, if you will, it has done little to support me in building partnerships ~ or even playing well with others. So, at my ripe old age, I am learning to play well with others. Projects are becoming team driven; I can contribute what I do best and allow for others to do the same. There really are things I don’t know how to do. There are even things I don’t enjoy doing that other people actually LOVE to do. By stepping out of the way, I am building teams for what matters ~ to US.

That is the kind of world filled with possibility. That is the kind of world worth creating. That is the kind of world where I love playing with others. Let’s do it well together!