Thank you to Ngobesing Romanus for asking me to be

a Guest Author on his site! I appreciate the opportunity!

Pat Davis

kindergartenknowledge.com

 

Who Has Seen The Wind? Neither I Nor You.

We will never really see the wind. We see the results of the wind. We see the leaves on the ground. We see the bended limb and the fallen tree. The wind is calm now. We cannot imagine what caused the wind to be so urgent during the night.

We will never really touch the wind. We touch the results of the wind. We touch the papers that we hold in our hands.  We try to grab the papers, but cannot touch them again. The wind is too strong. The wind is sometimes too urgent.

We can hear the wind whistling through the trees and around the corner of a building. Moving along swiftly and softly and sometimes loudly, the wind always retreats to the calm stillness that it needs.

If the wind needs stillness and calm, why would you be any different? Why would you need to remain in a state of urgency? How can you learn to be calm, yet strong?

When I began my second career as an elementary teacher, I assumed that urgency would be the name of the game. I would need to be urgent in teaching the five and six year olds to learn the letters, to read, to add, to subtract. I quickly learned that children never, ever respond to an urgent teacher. They are apt to be fearful of the urgent teacher. I finally figured out that the calmer that I became and the more subtle/patient I acted…the better the children responded. Like the wind, we all need to retreat to a calm atmosphere.

Before I became a teacher, I worked at newspapers in the editorial and retail advertising departments. There was a sense of urgency from the time I walked into the office until I left many hours later. Most of my co-workers tended to talk loudly, walk quickly, run up the stairs, run down the stairs, and barely engage in real conversations. I relished the urgent deadlines. I liked the fast pace and the instant results of seeing my work in print. I was young and just out of college. For the seven years that I worked at newspapers, I didn’t yet know about comparing my work ethic to the behavior of the wind.

My first supervisor continuously advised the staff to…

Work Smarter, Not Harder.

I could embrace that kind of attitude about work. Now I know that a better motto and directive would be…

Work Stronger, Work Calmer.

 

What I learned from thinking about the wind and success at work:

1. Organize your day into small sections and decide on a time to hopefully finish each section. If you don’t meet your time goal, take a deep breath and try again.

2. Make an effort to get to know your co-workers. Take the time to have real conversations. The more you know your colleagues, the more you will be able to discern their problems. The more you know your colleagues, the more you will be able to celebrate successes.

3. Control your temper. Control your negative words. Control your loud voice. Control your need to be in charge of everything.

4. Try to not put yourself in the position of having urgent work that is due today, or due within an hour, or due right now. Sometimes deadlines can’t be helped, but many times procrastination escalates the urgency of your job.

5. Walk somewhat slower. Smile somewhat more. Complain somewhat less. Be totally consistent somewhat more…well…somewhat always!

 

Like the wind, be calm.

Like the wind, be strong.

Like the wind, be patient. 

Like the wind, be purposeful.