Making History

Unless you arrive at the beginning, as a newcomer you’re faced with both a blessing and a burden: Ancient History.

You weren’t there, you didn’t see and you didn’t participate.
It’s a mixed blessing when you feel left out of a memory that belongs to all your teammates except you… you only just arrived.

I call these people in the surrounding environment my teammates due the fact that be they family, friends, colleagues or members of your chess club; they are a part of the an environment in your life in which you chose, or have to be a part of. They determine how good that environment can be and influence your activity, productivity and mood either directly or indirectly.

After analysing my working environment, I decided that the environment was simply too competitive to get personally involved and I opted to define my standpoint as a working observer. The way I saw it, the less I knew about personal motives, the less probability I’d have of being disappointed by the individual attitudes of my team mates. Criticism would only be made on a professional level lest diminishing the possibility of ever taking things personally.

In theory, it’s a simple attitude to render, but any observer who stays long enough in his surroundings will tell you that after a while you too become a part of history itself.
It’s impossible not to get involved… because you’re a team and because everything that you achieve or fails as a team has direct impact on you.
Time makes you a judge of character as you decided who you can and cannot trust. At some point any threat or criticism made to a teammate is in equal weight s if it were directed at you.
When bonds are made, you find that no matter how hard you try – you can’t always be impartial or indifferent.
That’s what makes life hard and decisions difficult to make, because they’re not always linear. Right by some and wrong by others, the emotions felt cause the scales to tip over.
In a room where everyone’s dancing, no matter how hard you try, you can’t avoid stepping on someone’s toes and sooner or later your toes will be stepped on too – often when and by those you least expect it.

Inevitably you make friends – even if they’re not aware of it.
Because there is so much more to a person that just their work and what they can teach you and often I find myself wanting to know more about a person beyond what they appear to be. At times I wish I could relate to certain people on a whole different level, on a different environment.
There’s so much more to an individual that what they know, I believe that you cannot hide your very essence beneath any amount of professionalism.
I daresay that with very few exceptions, if all my colleagues weren’t in the environment where they’re forced to work together, they’d probably be best friends.

History.
A place that keeps the lessons that have been learnt, solely responsible for the consequences and attitudes of the present.

It hurts me to see the scars of the part on those that become even dearer to me with each passing day.
If only time allowed things to return to the beginning, I’d snap a finger and the slate would be wiped clean so that trust could be rebuilt. Maybe then we could be less individual, more supportive…
I look around me and feel like there’s an ocean between me and the islands where my teammates stranded themselves individually on.
For now I’m thankful that I’m welcomed with comradeship but sooner or later I’ll be judged by befriending the offending neighbour and I’ll find myself in the very position I try to elude – it’s inevitable, at least it’s comforting in the sense of belonging.

I have hope, some say a fool’s hope and they’re probably right – hope nonetheless is far more productive than doubt or scepticism. With hope there’s always the possibility of growth or change.
I’m not so naïve to ask God for the power to change what history has already shaped. Instead I ask that tools become available to those who intend of making things better and that the mirror facing those who require a clear image for auto-evaluation.
I can’t change the world but I can change the way I react to it and perhaps if I smile when I feel like crying, the person in front of me will smile too and who knows… we may even laugh about it later.

I want to exist as an active partner with a positive influence and a helping hand to my teammates. No longer am I a mere observer even though I often with I was invisible. May my intentions always be transparent to those who look my way. Perhaps then we can find a way to strive to the same collective purpose.

Life gives us only one guarantee: that sooner or later each person is bound to disappoint us in one way or another. The difference and wisdom lies in the perspective we choose to see it by, the lesson we learn and what we do with it.