At some point in my upbringing I picked up the lesson “Don’t get into debt.”
Don’t borrow money – and if you lend money, write it off. And don’t ask people for favours, because if they do things for you, you owe them. (So, therefore, it’s better to say thank you but do it yourself so you aren’t indebted.)
So this time in my life has been a real challenge to that old programming. As soon as I had this accident, my old friend Lisa set up an online calendar so friends could book a time to bring me lunch and physically feed it to me. Friends arranged to drive me to appointments, and one even cancelled the rest of her appointments that day so she could stay with me as my follow-up ran long then turned into the bad news that I needed more surgery.
Then there’s Craig, who’s spent so much of the past month bathing me, brushing my teeth, taking care of – ahem – very personal hygiene needs, and doing two people’s worth of work around the house while I sit and watch helplessly from the couch.
I loved all these people already, but it’s impossible not to feel extra-adoring while looking into their face down a toothbrush or a spoon.
I’m in debt to these people beyond anything I could ever possibly repay. And here, where the economy of personal debts breaks apart, the truth of it shows through: There is no “break even” here, nothing I can do or can say to deserve this care.
But nobody has to – or could – earn it. We’re already inherently worth it. And that’s true even when we’re cranky, ungrateful, or not-nice. No amount of being funny or pleasing is equal to having someone wipe your arse for you.
I went through a not-nice, angry period with my work shortly after this accident happened. I sent one of those horrible messages – you know the type, the kind you really should have sat on for a few days. Instead, having impulsively fired off the “Norma Rae” rant they needed to hear, I had to go through the “disaster clean-up” procedure afterward – moreso because I’d used all my powers to write the most withering, poison dart message I could. I was, after all, the hard-done-by victim here.
Of course, it very quickly transpired that, while, yes, it’s started a conversation about what happens when an employee gets hurt, the company’s leaders’ and owners’ behaviour was nothing like the cold, calculated cauterization I’d described. Instead, they were compassionate, personal, and devoted in the way they handled me. The more caring they were, the more of an ass I felt.
“See, see, I knew you were like that all along…! Except, uh, you aren’t. At all. Oops. Sorry.”
For all my fawning apologies and gratitude after the fact, I now realize that I can’t earn the love they’re giving me. It’s just there, and – amazingly – makes allowances for my fallibility, too. (“Actually,” said Babs, the Coach’s co-owner, who courageously flew to my side to take of me when she got word that I was wigging out, “I’m interested in seeing what Dark Hamish looks like!”)
So why, I’ve been asking myself, did I react like this? It’s like some long-forgotten bit of old programming was activated when this happened.
Asking myself about this, I got the mental image of a dusty old box of dynamite in the corridor of a mine.
My grandfather, Dad’s dad, was a coal miner in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. Everything in town belonged to the Dominion Coal and Steel Company – including the workers’ houses and the store where they bought their groceries. Thus the town’s income came from the Company, and it went right back to them. When the miners went on strike, the Company’s owners called in the National Guard, who fired on them from a gun set up on the church steps – and the Company’s owners could pull in that favour because they also happened to be members of parliament.
So I can see why Rankin MacDonald was a communist: The existing order was so corrupt and unfair that the only possible hope had to be found in a completely different system.
This worldview is woven into my family’s mindset.
As someone who worked with and inside government systems throughout his social work career, my father has a very jaded view of large organizations. We often fall into conversations about corporations, political parties, and other groups, and generally wind up at the same despairing, resigned dead-end view of the humankind’s collective activities.
Then I look at the myths of my childhood, hugely shaped by the Star Wars universe, where all large organizations are evil and impersonal, and the plucky individuals who break away and resist the prevailing order are portrayed as alive in spirit and charged up with purpose.
I’m surprised how often this narrative still shows up in children’s stories, and gets a free pass every time – like it’s the safest fallback trope, even though it’s being delivered by entertainment behemoths like Disney.
This has clearly influenced my thinking, and even after 18 years of being around the Coach environment, where I’ve seen extremely successful entrepreneurs do incredibly kind, generous, and creative things, I’m disappointed to see how I retreated back into this old line of thinking when I felt scared and hurt.
I’ve also been on heavy narcotics, if I’m making excuses. (Except I haven’t felt high, just free of significant pains when they’re working.)
Yes, there are disappointments and unfairness in the world, but there’s also just as much, probably more good that happens every day. Which one is real and true is a matter of your choice of perspective.
At least I applied what I learned to the next round of fear: “Oh no, I have to get to PEI before November 3rd to sign the papers for the house! But I’ve just had surgery, and I need to have another follow-up with Doctor Furey!” (Great name, eh?)
So this time, instead of reacting, I questioned the basic assumption. And, speaking to my various real estate people, I discovered that we can sign everything here using a notary public and courier it to the Island. No biggie! So that’s our next task.
As my client and friend Dan says, everything is mindset. It was the subject of our last book – The Mindset Scorecard – and, right on schedule, I’ve wound up living out that theme in my own life.
