As
we glide effortlessly (joke) into the second year of the millennium, I find that
my thoughts are no different from those I always have at this time of year.
Where the hell did it go, and where am I now? It doesn’t seem more than a
month or two since I wrote my last January issue. In so many respects, this last
year has really been no different from any other. People are still fighting and
dying over land or money or both, CCF are still telling us that in the next 30
seconds x number of children will die despite my miniscule contribution, the US
has shown us over the last months that politicians have not changed and are
still as cynical as ever, Fiji had a mutiny which I guess is at least a change
from a coup, and Ruth Dyson did the right thing in politically correct
terms if that is your most important criteria. What she offered NZ as a caring,
intelligent, able person is now denied us, but hey, ‘form’ has to be obeyed
no matter the price. If we are excruciatingly honest, the difference between
Ruth and countless thousands of other New Zealanders is that she got caught
(Bugger...), and reporters don’t care about the other thousands. Change?
As I thrive in my late forties, it seems to me that nothing really changes
around me except the thing that is me, and those close to me. I remember a time
when I was thirteen, summer lasted for centuries, a year was a thousand years,
and my parents (then in their forties) were so incredibly old that we
called them ‘crumblies’. Now I’m a crumblie, and this year seems to have
gone by in the wink of an eye. On a thirteen-year-old Summer evening my best
mate and I would talk about the car-case we were going to save up for and buy,
made of marine ply and about the size of a modern container, converting it into
a ‘den’ with two stories, four rooms, electric light and a telephone. We
never did decide whether it would go at the back of his house or mine, probably
because at that age material possession of it was immaterial.
The
fact that my father would never have allowed it was not the point. It was the
dream of it, the planning of it, the vision of it, the pencilled drawings of it
(many), which provided the excitement and the fun. It was better than girls –
at least we could understand the car-case, it could never reject you,
make you feel inadequate, care that your voice jumped several octaves within a
single sentence or expect things of you. Puberty is cruel, and although it was a
dream, the car-case was a known element.
Somewhere
in my subconscious I knew that Dad would never allow it, but that thought
always remained a subconscious one, since if it ever became conscious, the dream
would die. Perhaps it is a thing of youth, a self-defence mechanism that does
not allow cold reality to interfere with a perfectly good dream. The dream was
the thing that made me get out of bed at 5.30am and deliver close on 200 NZ
Heralds (rain or shine) everyday before school and Saturdays for $2.50 per week.
And now I’m getting around to asking two questions – Do most of us lose that
defence mechanism as we mature, allowing ‘reality’ to extinguish or mute the
dream; and if so, do most of us as a consequence ‘live our lives in quiet
desperation’, never brave or mad enough to risk something, in some cases
everything, in pursuit of that dream? The scale of the dream is relative and
unimportant - thus an elderly Samoan man, seventy-something, a month or two ago
got his photo in the Herald having completed his university degree simply
‘because he wanted to learn’, Sir Peter sails quietly off on a 5 year
odyssey to the remotest places on Earth with a full film crew and a satellite
link to broadcast the pictures (what would Scott or Amundsen have made of that),
and every day non-famous people with a dream and scant resources start up small
businesses in the face of entrenched big business and work 14 hour days, seven
days a week, because they believe they will succeed. Some of them do. Five out
of ten new businesses are gone within the first two years, seven out of ten
within five years, mostly because of under-funding and lack of access to
experienced advice. Not because they didn’t try hard enough…
Back
to youthful dreams. At 14, too young to sit the examination for an Amateur Radio
Operator’s Licence, I built my first home-made radio transmitter and broadcast
in Morse Code for about 2 days, establishing contact with several licensed
operators, until a kindly gentleman from the NZ Post Office took my equipment
away and chose not to prosecute. I had a dream, and once I’d achieved
it I didn’t bother with the examinations bit and never became a licensed
Amateur. The next dream at 16, was the Merchant Marine as a deck officer,
and I managed to convince those in authority that I was capable of it and went
to sea. At 17 I had seen more of the South Pacific than most ever see in their
entire lives, but once I’d achieved that after 18 months, well…. There were
so many other dreams… it wasn’t until fourteen years later that I took time
off from a Management position, went back to Nautical School, studied, passed my
Commercial Skipper’s license, and drove Charter vessels after work most nights
and weekends for a couple of years. It wasn’t that I needed the money nor did
I need the challenge; in my ‘real’ job I had control of 18 other managers
and a seven million dollar budget. No, it was just another dream I needed to
do… Those who don’t understand, accuse people like me of being unstable
and/or irresponsible. They conveniently forget that it is usually an
unconventional risk-taker that started the organization that now provides the
accuser with their comfortable, safe salary… I put it to those people that if
they live their lives having never tested their capabilities then it is they who
are irresponsible. Life is precious and a one-time event - how dare they waste
it. A mate of mine went a bit too far in a similar argument when she said “but
we’ll always need ‘drones’ dear” (her patience had been sorely
tested and she tells me she later apologised to the ‘drone’), but it’s
true that anyone can do the ordinary, the possible, the comfortable and the
predictable. What is it about Comfort? I well remember a briefing meeting with a
Human Resources Manager who made an off-hand comment that she ‘disliked
salespeople as a breed’ and I so far forgot myself as to point out to her that
without those salespeople putting their self-esteem on the line and generating
revenue, there would be no pot for her to draw her salary from, and in fact no
organization for her to belong to. Kind of put a chill on the rest of the
meeting, but there are some times when the most honest place to put your
foot is in your mouth. Our dear Editor is even better at that than I am, hence
the bend in his nose… In my profession (training), a good trainer is a
not-quite-sane person who gets up in front of others, provides them with
knowledge, tries to get them to challenge accepted thinking and tries to change
their behaviour. That already makes us unusual and decidedly non-drone, but I
meet so many who possess those qualities and yet still accept a mundane salary,
and do so until they retire. Take a good look at yourself – do a ‘skills and
knowledges’ inventory. What are you really capable of? Are you still
clinging a little bit to that security blanket of convention and conformity, or
does self-doubt obscure that budding dream? Just a thought. Perhaps you could
experiment with the wild side a little, turn up in drag one day (if a politician
can do it and still get elected, why can’t you?) or dressed as a Nun, just to
see if anyone notices, or tell the Boss that you’ll give up your salary in
place of a share of profit… Whoa! Too scary? Some can’t handle
‘unconventional’ though, as demonstrated by one of our MP’s going to a
Parliamentary Select Committee meeting in jeans and causing (artificial)
righteous indignation. Like, we haven’t got more important things to worry
about? On TV the jeans looked clean and didn’t appear to have patches,
swastikas or holes.
Here’s
a couple of clichés, but as is often the case, there’s truth in
them…Firstly, there are those who wait for things to happen, those who
wonder what happened, and those who make it happen. Secondly,
those who wonder whether it can be done better get out of the way of
those who are bent on doing it. Many years ago I listened to a man on a
stage, who said that the most terrible thing that could happen to you was to
realise, at age 65, that you hadn’t done the things you secretly wanted to do,
and the second most terrible thing was then to decide that it’s too late.
I’ve never forgotten it. Convention and conformity be damned. Up the
establishment. Make 2001 a special year. Have a go at your dream. You’re
dead for eternity and that’s a hell of a long time.
Carpe
Diem
Steve Punter ANZIM,
Dip Bus (PMER), FHRINZ
Staff Training Associates Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand.
© Steve Punter 2001 All rights reserved by the author.