by tashmcgill | Dec 13, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Family
Too often, we wait too long in life to realise the lessons we are learning from our parents and those around us. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve learned from my parents and decided to start sharing it with you. Maybe you’ll share with me what you’ve learned too.
When I was about 9 years old, a teacher came to me after an assembly and said, ‘Your dad is at the back of the room looking for you.’
I shot back quick smart, ‘Oh yeah? You’ve never met my dad, how do you know it’s him?’
Not to be outsmarted by a precocious 9-year-old, she replied, ‘It’s written all over your face, you look just like him.’
To be fair, no 9-year-old girl really wants to hear that she’s the spitting image of a 45-year-old man but I am the spitting image of my father; blue eyes, round cheeks and that same chin.
Although now I can see I have the Godfrey eyes and my mother’s hands, I have always been, in one way or another, ‘just like your dad’.
Recently I’ve got to thinking about the very tangible things that I’ve learned from him. Maybe it’s because my dad has regular health scares or I’ve simply been to a few too many funerals this year – but I’ve been wanting to tell people more and more, where I’ve learned some of the core aspects of who I am. Where I come from.
To be clear – these are my words for what I’ve learned from Dad, not his own. But when I think about everything he is (and isn’t) I stumble across these themes time and time again.
- Relentless optimism.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve observed my Dad pick himself back up and continue on. When health has failed or work has been a struggle, he continues on. He’s always finding new opportunities and things to push forward into. He’s taught me to look for opportunities at every turn. To believe that things can turn around on a dime or on a long slow bend – and that there is always hope.
- Believe in yourself, even when no one else does or should.
There are no shortage of people who believe that will believe in you to a degree, but there will be times when the amount of belief you need is beyond what anyone else can give you. Whether it’s been pushing a creative idea beyond the limits of approvals or being too broke for gas when trying to crack a new deal open, my dad has taught me the power of remembering just how good you can be. There is one incident I remember with such clarity it brings tears to my eyes even now – Dad’s words were simple and to the point. ‘Tash, look at your little finger. You’ve got more creativity in that little finger than the rest of us put together – now you just need to remember that, ok?’
- Whenever you can, make somebody laugh.
I used to groan when Dad would make jokes with the checkout lady at the supermarket, although secretly I’d always be impressed when he could make them smile. I’ve learned that it’s a gift to bring a little light into someone’s world whenever you can. Dad’s taught me that you can’t be too serious all the time or you’ll get out of balance. And that sometimes when things really are pretty serious, you need a good laugh more than you think. That humour can get pretty dark, but I got that from him too, I think. I’ll never forget the first time he talked seriously about getting a tattoo (after my sister and I both had them) – his suggestion was a zipper over his bypass scar, with a tag saying ‘in case of emergencies, open here’. I used to be too serious about everything and now I probably err on the other side, but I think Dad’s side is better in this instance. It’s better to laugh and carry on than to miss the chances to smile with people.
- Everybody is a potential friend.
To be fair, I learned from both my parents to welcome people with open arms, but hospitality is still a little different from making friends wherever you go. I’ve never seen Dad turn up his nose at. I think I become friends with bartenders because my dad has always been friends with the people who served him, from the local pizzeria to the mechanic or the wine merchant. He’s never polite for the sake of being polite or friendly, he’ll back it up almost every time. It’s genuine.
- Don’t blink in the face of the unexpected – don’t ever judge.
I only recently learned from Dad that he used to consider himself a bit of a homophobe. I’m sure he won’t mind me sharing that as he’s long since changed his mind – as usual, he met someone who he welcomed into his life and couldn’t help but learn to love a gay man as a dear friend. When Bruno eventually passed from illness, it was easy to see the impact it had on him. Here’s the thing: I never knew that. Dad doesn’t blink in the face of the unexpected, he just takes it in his stride. There’s not much that can faze me these days and I think I learned that from him too.
- Humiliation is disempowering to you and others.
There have been plenty of opportunities where my dad could have read the ‘I told you so’ script to me on repeat, throwing old and new failures in front of me. Not because he’s cruel but just because that’s how some people are. But Dad has never taken an opportunity to do that, even when I’m sure he’s wanted to. And when I’ve faced humiliating experiences, he’s never dwelt in them – rather he’s helped me pick up and carry on. He’s helped brush over those humiliations to preserve my dignity in front of others.
- If you have to do something tough and you feel bad, it’s probably the right thing for the right reasons.
This was a much more direct and recent lesson. I was sharing some struggles I was having in communicating some pretty serious implications to a colleague. I was feeling awful about the process although I knew I needed to follow it through. Dad said, ‘someone once told me that when you have to do something tough, or say something tough to another person and you feel bad about it – it’s probably the right thing. And it’s a good thing that you feel bad about it, because it means you do really care about the person.’ Changed my whole week and the course of my relationship with that colleague.
What’s important about these lessons? Well, they have become part of the fabric of how I do life. They are criteria for my humanity – my Dad is very human.
I’m not as good a daughter these days as I used to be. Still, I want people to know that when they see me at work or at life, my father and all I’ve learned from him is an integral part of me. It’s good to remember where I came from and to share what I’ve learned from him because I think they are good lessons for all of us.
There’s something redemptive about recognising the gifts our parents and mentors bring us from their own experience, good or bad.
by tashmcgill | May 28, 2014 | Community, Culture & Ideas, Strategy
“You’ll get what you give.”
“You’ll get back out what you put in.”
“You’ll reap what you sow.”
There are lots of ways that we imply that action or investment should generate a return or reward. That philosophy underpins lots of daily interactions and decisions we make.
It’s not just about how much effort we invest in something, but also how much effort we invest in people and relationships. We reassess our commitment and friendships when we feel like we’re giving it more than the other person. We determine the priority of tasks in our work days based on how much it matters – or, what’s the consequence (lack of return or reward) if I don’t get it done.
Mostly, society has accepted this principle at large as a pretty good way of being. Society isn’t often wrong, right? Except, well – except in a bunch of cases.
Like charity, or when we try to describe what it takes to be a hero. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Oct 18, 2012 | Culture & Ideas
“…Thus, our humanity became defined by the collection of transactions in which we traded peace, war, love and chaos.
We hoped for triumph, we landed in despair. Then we began again.”
We are in the wild days. Not the wilderness, or a desert or a walkabout gone on too long. No, these are the wild days and the wild nights – it’s we who have become the untamed, the unleashed, the unhindered, the uninhibited. We have loosed our bonds or had them loosened so we have redefined ourselves without boundaries and cast ourselves out into the endless wondering of possibility, the freedoms of being unconstrained.
We have hoped to be brave enough to say “nothing is forbidden” but we are bound in by fear, regardless. We are in the wild days but our hearts are wrestling for constraint.
Wild/wīld/
Adjective: (of an animal or plant) Living or growing in the natural environment; not domesticated or cultivated.
Adverb: In an uncontrolled manner: “the bad guys shot wild”.
Noun: A natural state or uncultivated or uninhabited region.
Synonyms: adjective. savage – mad – feral noun. wilderness – waste
We live in boundaries, in a series of social norms that provide a sort of governance. Beyond these norms, when they are stripped away and discarded, no longer functional or necessary – we fear and risk losing ourselves. We try to replace boundaries, to redefine and reestablish them in hope of finding our secure footing again.
But often the last time we were on the loose without these boundaries was adolescence. In adolescence we treated boundaries with disdain but discovered ourselves by them. Too harsh and we rejected them, too soft and we bowled them over emerging somehow into our first adulthood. So now, we seek out our new rules, our new fences by the same methodology we employed then. Sensationalism, expression, exploration and extremism. We live on high alert, our senses ready and receptive. Still, now is not the time to re-imagine our awakening into adulthood. Once landed there, despite an absence of the boundaries we knew – it’s time to redefine ourselves into adulthood.
Perhaps the final stages of growing up, is redefining yourself into adulthood the second time around. It might be your quarter-life, mid-life crisis, your divorce, a faith crisis, the death of a loved one, an addiction or just boredom that launches your redefining moment. But never have you been more ‘be-coming’ than in that moment of coming home to yourself, in the last rendition.
We are fearful of the wild. The wildness within us, the wildness around us, the wildness of others. Our boundaries, social or otherwise, are our great defensive blockade against the wild. As husbands and wives, we harness each other up to prevent the wild from breaking loose. We employ rules like, “don’t a say a word, if it won’t be nice”, because in the unloosing of our tongue – the wildness might escape.
But I am not afraid of the wild. I long for the wild.
late in the night
i wake, dreaming
saying to myself over and again
‘don’t try to tame the wild one’
then i dream on waking
asking myself which fence to build
which gun to load and thus
hear the lion roar, feel the tiger’s claw
no one ever tamed the wild one.
Don’t build fences, dig deep wells. That is my philosophy of love, loyalty and passion. The concept is self-explanatory – don’t make rules to keep, control or constrain people just create places of deep refreshment that draw people back to the centre.
Here’s why I’m not afraid of the wild within. My well is deep. The tiger in me is well-satisfied. I am at home. Be at home with yourself and the wild within. Don’t build fences, don’t rely on the boundaries. Learn to live from deep within the well. Learn to live in the wild, with the wild, out of the wild.
by tashmcgill | Jul 22, 2011 | Prose & Poetry
We forget that the seasons of life do not move as quickly as the seasons of spring, winter and fall. For some of us, we have never been known in summer; in full bloom. Some of us are re-emerging, seen for the first time.
I wrote this poem when as I was stepping back into myself after some time away. I realised that while the reflection of myself I saw in the eyes of others was familiar to me; they were seeing me for the first time.
Oh, the possibility that we could see ourselves new again, recognising our strength, our beauty, our wonder as if for the first time and without fear.
Fierce.
This woman is like an army in front of me
Like a great tiger out of hibernation
Everything about her uniform is strong,
she is oiled like snakeskin
I forget, you have forgotten her – before the Hiberation,
that great dark winter when she watched
hovering from the north west east south borders of you
And you, hidden in the corner, did not know me
before the winter; cracking brittle icicle heart.
That underneath, she is entirely fierce
You over there could not know, you there, have pushed it from your mind –
That I am always summer.
Always, like an unshakeable,
immovable living oak tree, a cedar, fragrant – I am drenched
in some internal sunshine, I am always summer merely beneath snow
My blazing flesh becoming sacred, holiness of ash and ice
I have a secret, layers of secrets over hidden things and the most
furthest hidden thing in my heart, beating like a drum…
I do not need to feel happy to be happy
Happiness is in me like spring, summer and snow
now that I have remembered
How to roar from within to always be warm,
the dancing hunt of the tiger, the flight of the dove –
do not forget me again (I will not forget myself)
I do not need to be happy as some people need happiness
or melancholy as fuel, not to be happy or sad
the deepest melancholy is joy to me in summer, spring or snow
I fear nothing, I am not burdened by desire – I am freer
than one who tries to satisfy the burn
the burn instead delights me
i do not need to feel happy to be happy
I am fierce, like summer.
Fearless like this army within me.
by tashmcgill | Jun 24, 2011 | Culture & Ideas
I have a Just-In-Case box. Everytime I move house, I unpack it until eventually I need to repack it to move again. Sometimes, I’ve been known to take items from the box with me on travels to foreign lands, beach walks and up windy hills before dawn. It’s the box of things I keep Just-In-Case I need to remember, to reconnect or to rekindle something in me or between myself and old friends. Adding something to the box is never easy – it’s almost always bittersweet. To keep a memory sometimes means to have lost a present reality. Like when my aunty died, or my grandfather, or my first dog.
(more…)
