A weekly thought for leaders with the courage to introspect.
Those people.
“What's wrong with those people, Dad?”
I was in the World Press Photo exhibition.
A girl walked past me. About six, maybe seven.
She accidentally touched me. Her ponytail tickled my arm.
Her father, the pleated-pants-and-ironed-polo-shirt type, corrected her immediately.
“Melody, watch out for that gentleman.”
Melody.
I knew: he didn't come up with that name himself.
Not half a minute later I heard her ask softly:
“What's wrong with those people, Dad?”
“Woah…?”
“Those people. In that photo. What are they doing?”
I looked at her.
A girl, lost in a world of images too big for her.
The photos were indeed breathtaking. Masterful in technique.
But equally masterful in their raw depiction of war, grief and human suffering.
Too big for little girls with ponytails.
I agreed with her.
Wars are about power. About property. About profit.
And although we here, in our safe world, neatly proclaim that power at the expense of innocents is reprehensible…
In the meantime, let us effortlessly integrate ourselves into a system that runs on exactly that.
We have our career. Our comfort. Our success.
And somewhere we know: that often comes at the expense of someone else.
But it happens out of our sight.
Far away.
We can always look the other way.
A business associate once said to me:
“There are three situations in which everything is permitted: money, war, and love.”
War was not his domain, he said.
But in the other two, the rule for him was: anything goes.
Is that objectionable?
Is that accepted?
His answer: both.
That is the art of living: dealing with contradictions.
They are not alone in the world.
They are inside you.
In me.
In all of us.
Part of us wants to participate.
To be successful.
To have each other well taken care of.
Living a beautiful life.
But another part is searching for meaning.
To something bigger than yourself.
To your liking.
And that is exactly where the problem lies.
We live here under a tyrant called Perfection.
We must have passed.
Arrived.
Around.
Off.
But again and again the question keeps nagging:
When am I really meaningful?
Melody looked at those pictures.
And I looked at her.
Maybe that's the answer.
Perhaps we will be significant if we keep looking.
When we don't avoid discomfort.
When we keep asking:
“What's wrong with those people?”
—
The space between the words is where insight arises.
Until next week when our thoughts touch again.
Hans Ruinemans
The Boardroom Monk ☯️