Robert Paterson's Weblog: The Consultant's Trial - Do your clients drive you mad? Does the world depress you? Roger Harrison's View

Thanks, Robert, for picking up John Husband's posting. Much of this resonated with me. For example

In the early nineties I was burned out and discouraged with the results of my long career as a consultant. I turned to my autobiography as some people turn to their journals, in an attempt to work out the meanings in my life. The work was fueled by th paradox in which I found myself. I was at the peak of my powers as a consultant, but my passions and values were less and less shared by actual and potential clients, It was increasingly difficult to find work that felt worth doing, in the sense of promoting the three values mentioned on the first page of this paper.

I'm not sure what the height of my own powers is (or was) but I have become disillusioned with much of the work I used to do. I form the impression that a great many of my contemporaries share this disillusion and we each try different ways to resolve it. The author of this piece refers to the Monk's choice and I know that I'm not really up for that degree of solitude; likewise, he emerges from this period of reflection to re-engage with the corporate world on new terms.

In all this, a decent degree of humility is called for. And I was delighted - on another tip from Robert's blog - to discover Doug Manning's blog - this bit in particular:

How is it that we get so serious about life? The answer is simple – we take ourselves too seriously. We lose our ‘objective perspective’. Literally, we get too close to our life to see the humor. When you are very focused on anything, you lose your open-minded view. It is easy to fall into the habit of taking everything too personally, even the weather. This prevents us from seeing the great humor in our own imperfections.

Imagine a person waking up in the morning, stumbling to the kitchen, and pouring coffee on their cornflakes. The moment that occurs, that individual has a choice. They can get really angry with themselves, raging over the loss of time, image, and good cornflakes. Or they can laugh at their mistake, enjoying the reality of being human. They can even go to work and tell all their colleagues about the funny thing they did this morning, modeling the healthy way to view ourselves. Laughter really is a choice.

Laughter has a direct correlation to personal well-being. However, it is different than many people understand. People don’t laugh because they feel good, they feel good because they laugh. Laughing creates a sense of personal well-being. Shared laughter creates a sense of belonging. Laughing happens because you open your perspective, not because the world picked you to be amused today.