Human Nature

I am not a psychologist, anthropologist, or any other “ologist” whose opinion is anything other than that – an opinion. But I think I know a thing or two of human nature. I see patterns. The reason for any success I have attained during my life has come from my ability to observe, process, evaluate, and see the patterns that emerge. My ability to play several musical instruments without any training is simply hearing and reproducing the patterns of sound and transferring what I know from one instrument to another. My work in finance is recognizing that numbers are inherently neutral and only have the meaning we give them. Recognizing the patterns provides the ability to forecast and make corrections when the patterns change. My time spent in Hospitality (my only field of endeavor that deserves capitalization) was a great lesson in the patterns of human nature. Life changes and relationships have added additional information – sometimes pleasant, sometimes not.

I always start with the assumption that people have good intentions. For the most part, I still believe that is true. Unfortunately, where that is not true can been tragic, other than the valuable lessons learned. Others, I believe, start out with good intentions and then things go horribly wrong. The saddest and most damaging part of this is the effect it has on those who are within the blast zone… when one of these individuals has a flip of the internal switch that sends all civility awry, stand clear. They cannot be reconciled and they are never (in their own minds) wrong. Working from a starting point of compassion is still my modus operandi. Sadly, this pattern seems to be repeating in my life and the difficulty is to avoid it from coloring my perception to a dark shade of cynical. So far, I am succeeding, but why is it that this darkness can too easily overshadow all of the good?

This week, I have seen the best and worst in human nature – from the dark and threatening to the light and comforting. My challenge is to process all of this without dwelling on the intensity of the negative. It is far too easy to close yourself off and react to all people from your negative experiences. I choose not to do that. In spite of everything, the good far outweighs the less than good. If Anne Frank could say “It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart,” who am I to do otherwise?

And so ends another work week.