Everyone has their own set of values, socially shared conceptions of what is good, desirable, proper or bad. Those values influence our orientations, actions, reactions, and interpretations. But it is still important to keep an open mind. Trying to see why and how our world is. Being objectively neutral is desirable to many, but the truth is that nobody can be neutral. Values are present to initiate our individuality without conflict no one is there to decide which values is right or wrong. Fromm discussed two types of values; trust and honesty. These two values are claimed by a number of us, but are contradicted all of the time. We all want to be trusted but the truth is that there are those who cannot be. Honesty is a reward in it self, if you are honest to your self, and honest with the people around you the reward will come. Many people call this karma, having good karma is being spiritually healthy and changes will happen gradually in your every day life.
Many of my values are those passed down from my parents. Racist comments have always been rare in my immediate family. My parents have raised me to treat everyone, as I would like to be treated. Even though these values seem natural and correct to me, there are always those who disagree. Those who disagree have a right to feel the way they do, even though many open-minded people look upon it as narrow-minded. The most we can do is listen, try to understand where they are coming from, and realize that most racist thoughts are subconsciously instilled by surroundings.To understand something, you need to rely on your own experiences. To be objective, in my opinion is a truth that remains true everywhere, regardless of the situation, and is independent from human emotions. Always taking different views of things before judging others. I am the person who tries to be in harmony with everyone, but I am up to the point that sometimes I ask myself …WHY? Why do I care so much? Let it go. Let them figure it out. But I don’t function that way, instead I try to help and resolve the problem right on the spot.
This brings me to a situation that happened about 1yr ago at my old job. I had just arrived at the office and a day before the local Internet company was changing the service lines and they had sent a technician to install this line. It was installed perfectly on the outside, but inside the office the cable run from a hole next to the door, across the middle of the wall, clamped with a couple of staples all the way underneath the desk. It looked like a sloppy job, from someone who was rushing. My boss at the time did not like what he saw and of course he called the company and flipped off at them. For my boss’s luck the guy who answered the phone was the owner of the company and he was not going to take the nasty comments my boss was laying on him. They both argued and did not come to a civilized solution. The company shut off our Internet service, since we were a Dr’s office it hurt us for the day causing us to have to canceled appointment because our two offices were connected to a server and all the patients’ information was inputted into that server. No insurance information was available for us. Anyways since I’m always the mellow guy who takes everything calmly, I tried calling the company again and spoke to the owner and apologize in the name of our office. We came to a positive solution and I also had the doctor apologize for his actions. Till this day that cable is still in the middle of the wall. Something that I learned that day was to treat everyone the same, without boundaries, no matter what color they have, what gender they have or what their status is. You never know whom you might be dealing with. They might have the power to take everything from you. Treat everyone the same way you would like to be treated.
Your story proved that it is important to be patient with others and to be thorough in everything that we do. The person from the internet company was not thorough in his installation and he did not practice patience that a proper installation would require. As a result, your boss became angry instead of being patient. Your boss also did not practice patience with the representative and was not thorough in trying to peacefully reconcile the problem with the internet. If your boss had been patient, the matter could have been handled in a more productive manner.
ReplyDeleteYou did the right thing by diffusing the situation and using your patience to resolve the problem. Sometimes in life we have to clean up after others when they do not practice patience. It was not fair for you to have to resolve a situation that was not your fault. However, in doing so you allowed the doctor’s office to get back to business and helped the clients of your doctor’s office.
This demonstrates Fromm’s idea of brotherly love. You went above and beyond what you had to do to restore internet service to the office. Although this situation was no fault of your own, you still stepped in to help others. You did not gain anything by doing this other than knowing that you helped others that were in need. To live life with concern for others will benefit you, weather it brings you good karma or surrounds you with loving people.
Good call on the mediation. Information is important in something such as human health. It sucks when two parties have a break in communication both on something so harmless. One, the cables were not tripping anyone so the doctor got pissed over pure aesthetics. Two, the provider owner was unable to compromise. If I was the provider I would have served the original contractor up on a platter and make him redo his task, free of charge. It's insane to cut off communications to a group that saves human lives.
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