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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I am going to try and make today’s episode short and sweet so you don’t have to listen to my head cold stricken voice, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share lessons brought to mind during a recent conversation with a friend.
Today’s Fun Fact of the Day is: The month of May is named after Maia, the Roman goddess of growth. May signifies the beginning of new growth and the planting of new plants.
Friday Forum
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What I Learned Yesterday:
I am currently 39 years, 2 months, and 19 days old. I hope that I am currently only half as wise as I will be when I am twice my age. Although there are days when I go to bed and feel like I haven’t learned anything that day, most of my days do include learning something. I’ve even discovered that on days when I felt like I didn’t learn anything at all, I actually gained experience that will pay off down the road.
Even though I know I’m still young and have a lot to learn, there are some things that I am certain that I know with absolute certainty.
One of those things is that when we surround ourselves with people who are smarter, wiser, more humble, and more wealthy than us, we grow in those areas because of what we learn from them. I also know that when we make ourselves available to share our experiences with others who are seeking to be where we are, we bring them to a higher place.
I have a friend named David. David is a great guy with a lot of talent, a lot of brains, and a lot of character. He works for a really great company, but he recently learned that his job was being replaced and there was a high chance of him being laid off. For the last few months, he’s been going through a game where somedays it looks like he has a new position, and other days it looks like he’ll be let go.
I feel really bad for him. I try to imagine what it would be like to stand in his shoes and wonder about the future. I imagine what it would have felt like in that moment when you’re told that your job is being outsourced. I wonder what kind of fear would come over me. I wonder if I would experience peace instead.
I wonder what would go through my mind if they told me that another job had been found for me in a different department of the company. Would that calm my fear? Would it bring a smile to my face?
Did you ever see that episode of Friends when Phoebe lied to Rachel and told her that Rachel’s pregnancy test was negative just so she could see Rachel’s true heart’s desire? I think that’s what it would feel like if I was told that I lost my job and then told that I’d been given another position. I mean, I think there’s a chance that I would actually be disappointed in the new opportunity.
But maybe not.
My friend’s story doesn’t end there. The new position is actually now back up in the air. He’s working at the new position, but it officially only a temporary job.
David wrote me a note this week to let me know how things were going.
While I can’t fully relate to his exact circumstance, I can relate to it for sure. When I lost my buying job in in 2004, there was a lot of uncertainty in my mind. I pulled from that experience and told David, “Humility, work ethic, and skills are always sought after.”
Let’s take a look at each of those for a minute.
Work ethic matters because when it comes time to make hard decisions on who gets to keep their job, those with a poor work ethic will usually be shown the door. If they aren’t shown the door, they may keep their job because they have a sought after set of skills or specific knowledge. However, another big factor is humility. The respect we show our co-workers and supervisors will go a long way toward helping us keep our job.
In fact, shortly after I was told that I was being replaced as a buyer, I requested a meeting with the owner of the company. During the course of that meeting, I respectfully told him why I felt that I was being wronged. At the end of the meeting he told me that he appreciated the way I had handled the entire situation. He understood that it had been a difficult time for me, but because of the way I had conducted myself, I was not being fired. Instead I was being relocated.
This was a big deal. It showed me that humility matters. There was an appropriate and respectful way to handle the situation. Because I chose the path of humility and respect, I was able to stay with the company and eventually get better position than the buying position.
After I sent David the message about Humility, work ethic, and skills, he replied with, “I love the humility part…I think that’s the word that I would use to describe the last several months as a whole. Nothing wrong with being humbled – drawing closer to Christ as a result, is the best result.”
Here’s what I learned.
I love David’s words. I can tell that this time has truly been a learning experience for him. I don’t know exactly what he learned, but I don’t need to. I know that when I look back across my 39 years, 2 months, and 19 days of life, I have always learned the most through times of humility. Unfortunately, that sometimes means we have to be humbled. I have no idea what that meant for David, but I know what it has looked like for me. I talked about one example of that in episode 3 of Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
I think is an absolute truth for just about every part of our lives. If we take a moment to discect our lives and look at the growth rings of who we are, we will find that our most bountiful moments of growth do not occur in times of plenty and ease, but rather in times of difficulty, despair, and uncertainty. And just like David, I have also found that through these times I have learned more about the grace, care, and love of Christ than I ever have in times of ease.
Why?
Because it’s in difficult times that we gain perspective, see life more clearly, and see less our ourselves. And through that process, we are able to see the world much more clearly.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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