When
I say "your" children I don't mean just your biological children, but
rather all the young people that you have contact with -- students,
recruits, the children of friends. I believe that part of the reason
for the dissociation
of so many young people today is the fact that we don't talk with them.
We wait for them to ask us questions (having forgotten what it feels
like to be in their shoes), or to screw up, so we can tell them, too
late, what not to do. It is
as if we consider it presumptuous to talk with them, as if we're so
ashamed of what we know and believe, and how little we have learned,
that it would be of no value to them (or at least, they
wouldn't consider it of any value). Or perhaps our confidence has been
so shattered by how little (and how poorly) we feel our own parents and
elders taught us, that we've become to timid to even try. Some of us
are so unpracticed at it that we're probably afraid
to talk with young people. We wouldn't be the first generation to feel
that, but it's still a shame. We are leaving them an incredibly
fucked-up world, and we owe them at least an explanation, a few
pointers, some rules of thumb.
I have resolved to teach three
things to the young people I am privileged to have the opportunity to
speak with, and perhaps influence a little.
The first thing I will teach them, and perhaps the most important, is my biggest mistakes.
As any improv expert will tell you, there is nothing as disarming as
disarming yourself, telling some self-deprecating stories, making an
unforced confession. Most of us are terrified of doing this (with
anyone -- employees, family, friends, let alone young people we think
we are supposed to be some kind of role models for). Won't they think
less of us, distrust us, find us unreliable, turn away, if we tell them
what we have done wrong? My experience has been the opposite. Even on
this blog when I get self-critical it seems to endear me to readers
more than scaring them away.
I'm not going to tell you, or any young acquaintances, my biggest mistakes in a list (it is a long list). That's not the best way to teach anyone how to avoid those mistakes themselves. The best way is always by a story. It doesn't even have to be in the first person, if that's too embarrassing.
My story about the mistakes I've made in my marriage was written as
fiction, though readers who know me well saw right through it. My story
about finally discovering what knowledge management was about (after
wasting a lot of time and money doing the wrong thing) takes a
half-hour to tell, and parts of it are pretty funny (humour always makes a story better, even if it's a tragedy). If you're no good at telling stories, it's never too late to learn.
Why
teach young people my mistakes? Not so much so they'll avoid them (have
you ever really learned from other people's mistakes?) It's more so
they know it's OK to make mistakes, that you survive them, that that's
how you learn yourself, that they make you stronger.
The second thing I will teach them are the critical life skills they don't learn in school:
I
don't really understand why these skills are not taught during all
those interminable boring school days we force children to endure
indoors, shut away from the real world. There are lots of theories,
from a conspiracy to make us all dependent on the corporatist state, to
a dearth of competencies in teaching these skills even if there were a
will to do so.
But these skills are much better learned hands-on
than in classrooms anyway. You don't shove an article in front of
someone and say "Here, read this, it will teach you how to think
critically". These are skills learned by practice. That entails going out and doing something with young people.
How often do we do that? Is the aversion of the young to doing things
with the old the result of experienced learning, or a fear of the
unknown? If the idea of doing this is a little unnerving, if you're
feeling a bit rusty at intergenerational experiences of any kind,
you're far from alone. Use your imagination in picking the experience,
and I'll bet you the young people you share it with will still be
talking about it twenty years later.
The third things I will teach them, and the least important of the three, is advice on how to live their lives. It is the least important because no one follows anyone else's advice. Its purpose is not to instruct, but to show you care, which is even more important.
And again, the best way to provide this advice is through stories. Here
is some of the advice I will craft into stories to tell to my
grand-daughters, and any other young people I can get to listen:
- Learn as much as you can, especially skills that are useful, that make you independent and self-sufficient.
- Love
yourself. Give yourself time, space and permission to become your true
authentic self. Ignore critics. Don't be down on yourself for things
you can't control. Don't judge yourself by others' standards, or vice
versa.
- Even if it takes a lifetime, strive to find work that
you love, and that you do better than anyone else -- the work that is
needed that you were meant to do. Settle for nothing less.
- Don't
look for utopia. It doesn't exist. You will know your place when you
find it. It won't be perfect, but it will be home. Open yourself to it,
your senses, your instincts, and connect with all the life in it. Let
it teach you to be part of the whole.
- Love others without limit, without condition, without reservation. You will only be loved as much as you love others.
- Don't plan too much, or too far ahead.
- Do
something, every day, to make the world a better place. It doesn't have
to be big. Help someone. Say "thank you". Tell someone you love them.
- Never let urgent things get in the way of your doing what's important.
OK, that's pretty simple, right? What's missing? And why, if it's so obvious and so important, aren't we doing it?
Top illustration from the award-winning children's book The Salamander Room
written by Anne Mazer and illustrated by Steve Johnson
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
