Personal lives

Emergency rooms and OR waiting areas are tense places. I spent some time in them this week with my son who had to have an emergency back surgery (he is OK and recovering). It was hard to concentrate on work, although hospitals now offer internet access. Among other things, I was thinking about all my colleagues – these three have been fighting cancer, that one broke her hip; another person’s father or mother is dying, someone else is going in for a planned surgery. But someone just simply had bronchitis, and someone else I don’t know about had sick children, broken transmissions, family troubles, or financial crises. How do they all cope, and how do I know where my requests, demands, and messages come into their lives?

Somewhat disparagingly, It is called personal life; as if a life can be anything but personal. One is supposed to keep it separate from work, or so I was told by someone.  But can we, really, any of us? – nope. It affects us, and sometimes in ways that are not easy to trace. I found myself, for example, very cranky and critical (more than usual anyway) when I came back on Wednesday. Why? Because I am worried about my son, because I wonder if I could have done anything to prevent his injury; perhaps one more word of caution, one more doctor visit could have made a difference. I am frustrated because unlike Windows, real life does not offer a system restore point. But that’s just a theory; this may very well be a mild flu or something else entirely.

We are not rational beings, far from it. Our subconscious minds do things for their own strange reasons. We do not understand much of our emotions and reactions, sometimes until later, sometimes never. And if we do not understand or fully control our own actions, how can others? This is way humans have developed the judgment gap, the ability to suspend judgment. “Well, he is rude but who knows what’s going on in his life?” “She is absent-minded lately, but it will probably pass when she works through her issues.” That sort of empathic imagination is not given to us at birth; it is something we struggle to build; some with the help of religion, some without. It competes against our very basic need to defend ourselves, to counter aggression with aggression. If someone is rude to you, you must feel very secure to blow it over, and allow for complexities of a human psyche. If you are threatened, the empathic imagination shuts down, and forgiving becomes very difficult.

I am thinking – how can we help including our colleagues’ personal lives in the fabric of our work lives? How do you mix and blend, helping both be good and worth living? Is it a too tall of an order?