In preparing for a career day speech I’m giving at a local high school tomorrow, I came across an old quote attributed to Woody Allen. 70% of success in life is just showing up. I could not disagree more.
On the contrary, I believe in this global economy employees and managers, self-employed and unemployed, kids and adults need to do more than just show up. In fact, this may be part of our problem. I mean, what if the problems in the economy are just a symptom of something else? What if the problems aren’t off-shoring, Millennials, retiring Baby Boomers, or any other external factors? What if the real problem is us and the way we think?
Granted, the drain on the workforce by the retirement of older generations, sending jobs to other countries, and the freezing of lending capital are real problems, but I believe they are a sign that something else has gone astray. We have gone astray.
Everywhere I turn I see signs of entitlement and a sense of being victimized. People feel as if they’ve lost control and they are looking for someone or something to blame. What they’re missing is that while there are many things that happen outside of our control, we can control our reaction to what happens. It’s called personal responsibility and it seems to have been seeping out of the human fiber for a while now. Time to work it back in!
