The Life of a Tourist

On Friday when I was at work, I looked over to the left and saw a new piece of wisdom written on my boss' whiteboard. The quote read, "it's hard to be grateful and unhappy at the same time." Being the Friday before Fall Break, it wasn't my intention to be very thoughtful and think about something so poignantly, but this thought just kind of resonated with me. I don't think that that quote is correct and it's kind of because of something Sylvester Tan said during the Jesuit Speaker Series lecture I attended a few weeks back. When he was talking about the 3 different types of actions and how each had a different level of cognitive participation required, that part of the lecture really stuck with me and relates very well to my boss' quote and my experiences this weekend. Thinking about the quote at hand, it's actually pretty easy to be unhappy and grateful at the same time, I would actually like to go out on a limb and say that that is how a great percentage of people live their lives. Feeling jaded with the world, complacent, overworked, overstressed, there are a lot of outwardly unhappy people who, deep down, are grateful about the things that they do have. These people just don't have the ability to look consciously at life and analyze their surroundings to be able to see "beauty in all things."

Innately, people know that beauty is there, but it takes something extra to step outside yourself, to stop being so jaded, so complacent, so overstressed and busy, and consciously realize how beautiful and special your world really is.

From personal experience, I can tell you that this is such a rewarding yet difficult task to take on. I'm the first to admit that I have too much on my plate and that everyday for me is tightly scheduled and regimented, not leaving very much time to stop and smell the roses. This friday though, being the very beginning of break, tradition dictated it had to be what I call an "Alexa Day." Alexa Day is a holiday (and should honestly be a national holiday, people all around the world would love me if they had days like these!) where I do whatever I want, no questions asked. This particular Alexa Day, I decided to take the streetcar to the French Quarter and see what craziness ensued. On the way there, I got a great seat on the streetcar, second row from the front, right side, totally scenic, I was super excited about it, until it happened; tourists. That's right, the most feared part of any excursion on public transportation, the absolute bane of my existence (I am from the Poconos after all); the map holding, question asking, picture taking, open container carrying tourists. And, as is consistent with the luck that I tend to experience in life, where do they sit? In the row in front of me, behind me, and, of course, right next to me. Not the start to Alexa Day I was hoping for. These tourists though actually taught me something really valuable. They saw things for the first time that I've seen hundreds of times and, at each new sight, really got to appreciate it. After living here for a little over a year, I feel like I was denying myself the right to see the beautiful place I lived; that deep down I do appreciate New Orleans, but I was no longer able to recognize and admire the parts and pieces that made it up. Having that revelation, it was so nice to get walk around the city, seeing things anew again, appreciating them like it was my first time. The gorgeous oak tree lined streets, the wrought ironwork, the different types of people, the architecture, the river, the houses; I'm lucky enough to live in one of the greatest places around.

It would be life changing if every one had the chance to step back and take a day to live the life of a tourist. If people appreciated things as if it were the first time they'd ever seen them, I think there wouldn't be the unhappy, jaded, complacent people we experience oh so often. You never live the same day twice. No matter how strictly you schedule yourself, things in life will always change, and that's not in your control. Try not to let those things be the nuisances that get in your way, but the opportunities to be a tourist. See them, acknowledge them, and appreciate them for the ability they give you to get a fresh breath out of life. Be aware of yourself and your surroundings and see the beauty abounding, it's all too abundant to keep passing up.

Deeper than the Surface

As years go by, it is natural for one to move up in the ranks of leadership, and it seems as if this past week has seen a lot of that coming to fruition for me, not all of it being positive. I've always felt that leadership is misunderstood by a lot of people or maybe that I just didn't quite know what I expect a leader to be. The title "leader" seems to have a sort of stigma or double standard attached to it, but the more and more I think about it, I feel more confident that I've discovered one of the greatest underlying principles of leadership; that is, it's not about what you do, but how you do it. I know, how creative and astute a revelation I just announced, right? But as simple of a statement as it seems, it really made something go off in my head. A few weeks back, I volunteered with a friend/co-worker to plan a training session for work. As the planning stages went on, I was so focused on the event and presentation and proving myself to others that I feel as though I forgot about actually being a leader. I did almost everything by myself and even though the event ended up being a huge success with great attendance and a lot of learning taking place, I still deem the event as a whole to be a "failure". 

I feel in this situation, I was supposed to be a leader and a role model, I was supposed to be part of a team, I was supposed to motivate myself and others, and I was supposed to create a successful end product; very little of that happened. This is where the "it's not about what you do, but how you do it" analysis comes into play. On the surface, a great training session took place and everyone involved was really pleased with the outcome, but, if you look deeper, things below the surface weren't all they should have been. Neither my friend or I took a role of leadership; we just left it to the undertow to push us along. My friend got through on the back of my work and I got through by wanting to get something done so badly that I wouldn't stop to let true collaboration (and, in a way, leadership) take place. With those descriptions in mind, neither of us were leaders or role models. We followed a stream of action and ended up in roles that we would never prescribe to others as a way to live. In this situation, it worked out where there was a successful outcome, but the means of which it was made were not appropriate.   

Going forward, I know that there's a lot to be taken from the situation though. I love my friend and harbor no resentment in regards to the situation, in fact, I actually kind of think about this as a learning moment. I have a strong personality and I am really receptive to comments and criticism, but I don't tend to openly seek it. In this case, maybe if I had communicated better and sought out more constructive criticism and collaboration, this event could have gone from being great to astounding; we could have gone from followers to leaders; we could have actualized the role model figures we wanted for ourselves in the situation. That whole "it's not the destination, but the journey that matters in life" spiel that we hear oh so often in our lives was actually given meaning to me in this event, and I appreciate that. The end result gave others something to take away, but the journey is what gave the venture any kind of purpose for me, and honestly, I couldn't be any happier to have "failed".