Where’s the wisdom?

It was one of those days where it feels like everything I said wasn’t right. One of the harder parts of being on the younger side of my job is the lack of experience. When working with the public, I work with people who have worked their industry for longer than my parents have known each other. When I enter these interactions, I try to brandish the fact that I’m inexperienced in a useful way. The only way to remedy it is to get experience, and an excellent source of experience are the people who know their jobs better than I know the back of my hand. 

Sometimes this doesn’t work, though. Sometimes there’s people who aren’t willing to go along with inexperience or take the opportunity to pass on experience, but rather choose to be spiteful. As much of a bummer as those people can be to deal with, it doesn’t change the fact that I have a job to do. 

I don’t always know the difference, however. Sometimes I can’t tell when someone is willing to teach me or if they simply want to bother me. It can be tricky; I can end up accidentally turning away good advice and wisdom through trying to tune out the negatives. I think this could be a side effect of the ego-based training tendency’s I am working on identifying. 

I would like to think every person and situation can have a learning opportunity attached. Even when the day ends up making you feel like a tiny little dust mite, there’s an opportunity to still become 1% better by the end of the day. Right now, I am working on being able to look past the negative emotions that cloud my vision and take sight of the little lessons that can be picked up. 

I also have reminded myself not to make these adjustments for the sake of addressing ego-based training, but to do it for the sake of my own health and benefit. No ends justifying means right now; just one step at a time, the here and now.