Valuing Others, Warts and All

"When you love someone, you have to accept them, warts and all."

This is a common quote from one of my dearest friends and a concept that the universe emphasized over and over for me this week.

It's been a rough few weeks at work for me. As a teacher, one of my strengths (and weaknesses) is that I can be endlessly patient with teenagers; however, adults, not so much. I find that adults bash on crazy teenagers all the time but rarely reflect on their own hypocrisy. Just one of many examples of this would be how my colleagues rarely show compassion with regard to student irresponsibility in the form of missing assignments or disrupting class, but when it comes to professional behavior, readily excuse their own tardiness to work or talking in faculty meetings.

As a result, I have been really frustrated with my colleagues. My patience has been wearing thin, and I have not been very nice. The question is... did this correct my peers disappointing behavior? No, not at all. Instead, the universe decided that I needed a little humbling my own self.

I was running a meeting with a small group of colleagues, 10 or so people in the room. Some comments were made about some inappropriate and unprofessional behavior that had been going on. Now, being in a leadership position, the professional thing for me to do would be to squash that conversation and move on.

Did I do that? Heck no? I contributed to it. Only to find out, shortly after the meeting was over, that I had overstepped and wrongly accused a colleague of something that hadn't actually occurred. Uggh!

As a result, I then had to approach the professionals who were talked about in the meeting, let them know what had been said, acknowledge my own participation and lack of leadership, and then apologize. It was painful for my colleagues, embarrassing for me, lesson learned, right?

Nope, it gets worse. 😱

In a moment of absolute irony, I find out a few days later that one of the people that I had hurt had previously submitted me for an award for creating a positive climate in the building. An award that was shared in front of the entire faculty. I never thought I could get an award that would make me feel so unworthy and so very called out at the same time.

In follow up, my job was to choose someone who would receive the positivity award next time. As I talked with others I respect, proposing names for colleagues who might actually deserve this award, I found something interesting. In response to each name, there was always a "ya, but."

"Ya, but he's always late to work."

"Ya, but she never shows up to committee meetings."

"Ya, but ________________________________"

And I remembered my friend's quote about loving people, warts and all. My warts, that I try so hard to cover, had really been exposed this week. It was humiliating. I am going to use this guilt to try to value other adults in my life the way I value my students. The truth is that we all have warts. Adults have had a lot more time to acquire warts and learn to cover them up. With teenagers, you get what you see.

So in that line of reasoning, I am going to choose another adult for the award who has warts but who has also made a positive impact on my life. I am going to ignore the "ya, buts" and try to forgive myself for my "ya, buts." When children say "ya, but" in class, my daughter's kindergarten teacher says, "If you can't say rabbit say bunny." It works in this situation. If I avoid the "ya, buts," I can look for the bunnies. 🐇