In the last several months I’ve spent very little time in my office – I travel quite a bit to begin with, plus there were numerous other excursions for personal and professional reasons, including one to Chicago in May for SOBCon08.
As someone who has worked for the same company for 14 years, my workspace is really my second home, with many knicknacks, books, pictures, plaques, art prints, posters, and (mostly) piles of paper. It’s a comfortable place I often take for granted, rarely actually looking around at the accumulation of “stuff” and all the memories and lessons that they represent.
Most of the time I’m “thinking forward”, trying to stay a few steps ahead in my business, and operating what I call the “mental vacuum cleaner”, reading and scanning for new learning and personal development opportunities.
I surmise this is a pretty natural thing for most people to do, especially in a world where new information and learning is so readily available (thanks to the Internet and E-mail).
So it was a pleasant surprise to rediscover a lesson this morning just by looking six inches below my computer monitor. For whatever reason today my eyes wandered a bit below my e-mails and Twitters and saw that there were 5 small pieces of metal arranged on the monitor stand.
These metal pieces have been there for over 5 years – they were given to me by a dear friend when I was at one of my career crossroads. I hadn’t really looked at them (or absorbed their content) for that long, even though they were hiding in plain sight.
What did these things say? Each piece had a number and a lesson.
- Free Your Mind From Hatred
- Free Your Mind From Worries
- Live Simply
- Give More
- Expect Less
After I re-read these lessons, I couldn’t help but smile. I couldn’t think of a better way of describing how I wanted to live my life of “Half-Fullism”, and it was right in front of me for all those years.
I’m leaving those metal pieces in place (of course I made sure they were all nicely lined up and in order) in the hope I’ll refer to them a little bit sooner next time.
I write about this today because this is a great take-away for all of us. While we always want to learn and experience new things, we shouldn’t forget about the key lessons we’ve picked up in the past, especially the ones our “past selves” have put on display, hiding in plain sight.
We did that for a reason. Sometimes we forget that reason. Next time you are in one of those “comfortable places” like my office, take a look around and re-familiarize yourself with your past learnings. Like me, I bet you’ll be glad you did!
Popularity: 9% [?]
Subscribe By RSS
Subscribe By E-mail
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey, Terry – just for fun, change their order every now and then. It’ll help you to remember to look at ‘em every now and then. (Hopefully sooner than 5 years, anyway!)
Cheers!
Robert
Looking around, I see my old Ty Baby monkey from a prize I won in 2000, a photo from the day I proposed, our wedding photo, a few witty comments on paper, and a myriad of comics and certificates.
You’re right, it’s comfortable.