I have this theory: the Dialogue of every relationship will help define the relationship.
In a workplace; in a marriage; in business relations; short-term relationships, long-term relationships, whatever-you-got.
Friend J told me once that her husband would never say the things that were good, he would only pick out the things that needed work -- about the kids, the house, her, whatever. One could make the argument that there isn't time to spend with happy-talk; you gotta find the damn problems, fix them, & keep moving.
One could make that argument, but -- those people wound up divorced.
Someone else I knew said her parents had advised her to be nicer to her husband; she said to me, with frantic, in-a-hurry tones, "...But -- there isn't time!"
She was so in overdrive, trying to make everything perfect, and make everything go.
And -- first thing you know, husband had moved in with cocktail waitress he met at a local casino. (Raising money for State through Gambling has been so "Good" for our quality of life and social issues in our state. [!?! Great. Ugh.])
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What I'm struggling to express -- probably can't do it right -- is, Dialogue is powerful and in every aspect of our life we can use it to create the frame of mind --and attitude -- that we want. I'm not nearly as talented at doing this as some people in the world -- but I can see the usefulness, and the possibilities, and that gets me psyched.
{an excerpt from Donald Spoto's Jackie Kennedy biography relates to this --}
...for Jackie -- her concern with excellence as the route to happiness for herself and others...
(someone I know said every person in a Company should want to excel and take pride in their work, from the lowest-paid to the "Top" and all in between -- that coincided with something I heard either from my father or my seventh-grade English teacher, I'm not sure -- that "there's dignity in all work" and doing, and being your Best has intrinsic rewards which benefit the individual and, obviously, the workplace that's peopled with workers feeling good about their work, coming in proud to be the best, or their best, daily....)
[back to my excerpt which appeared relevant this morning, let's see if it holds up...]
Jackie's sense that her own career was a vocation, not just a job, is directly related to what another of her authors, Olivier Bernier, called the "informed sympathy" of her critical work. She worked on five of his books on French social and political history. According to Bernier, she had "a rare ability to make an author feel that what he was doing mattered. She cared enormously about books -- not only about their content, but also the way they looked. The world is full of self-important people, [but] no one could have been more self-effacing than Jackie when she was working with her author...[and] she helped improve the book without ever being intrusive."
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, whose novel "Poet and Dancer" she edited, found that Jackie's "empathy was so total...I felt I could lean on her strength, [which] came from her own vulnerability: she as aware how you felt because she felt it herself and knew exactly when and how you needed her support."
[Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: A Life,
by Donald Spoto. "Chapter 13, 1980-1992." Copyright
2000, St. Martin's Press, New York, NY.]
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"Support." That's the key word. Call it team-work. Being on the "same side." Being "supportive." Whatever you call it, my belief that this is the most important factor of any kind of successful relationship whether it's work-place or wherever, is becoming even stronger.
Being Supportive.
and
having a
Positive Dialogue.
What's right about things?
And how are we going to fix what's wrong?
Let's go!
(It's not me against you. It's Us Succeeding.)
I think every Person can find his or her "Inner Jackie."
-30-
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