Distinctions

“Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality”
Harlan Stone

Things matter most when you place value on them, and by things I mean everything. Objects, people, places, tangible connections to people, we all give value as we assign it to them. An idea can hold great value and motivate an individual to great heights just as a desire but mostly what drives importance is how we individually esteem it. This, I believe, is where cultures, families, workplaces fall apart.

This happens when
a.) Value is placed inappropriately and
b.) no value is placed where it is most needed.

The CEO of my company sent this out in an “ALL Calgary” email the other day.

You are invited to submit responses to the question below for the Calgary Quarterly Staff meeting.
This is a three-part question. Please answer in 50 words or less NO LATER THAN 12:00 NOON TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 2010. Please note, all responses will be held in the strictest confidence and will remain anonymous.
1) In your professional life here at (blank) what “guides” you?
2) Could you suggest anything that (blank)may (or may not) add to our Mission Statement and if so, what would you suggest? (No promises!)
To develop people to work together to create value for the Company’s shareholders by doing it right with fun and integrity.
3) If your suggestion WAS added to (Blank) Mission Statement, how would you behave differently?
Thank you,
Name Witheld ; Chairman
Company Name

After everyone on the floor chuckled I thought about how in so many ways I admire the man and yet in others I wonder. Big thinking thought here; and for all intents and purposes what I think of him really is low on any matter scale to just about anyone in the company. With being a pencil pushing, report generating LOW SLUG ON THE TOTEM POLE kind of employee even in writing something what could I ever offer a man worth billions of dollars and making multi trillion dollar decisions on a daily basis? My guess would be nothing, I am sure.

So I thought about the statement. Big Kaunas is a guru of the great Stephen Covey and believes in all things “7 Habit’s plus the 8 and so on and so on and so on”. I’ve read all the books and think there are just as dynamic as the next guy but under it all, what are all of us and what matters in my world that would ever matter in his?

The other day, I got on the elevator. Now, BIG KAUNAS knows who I am because some of the reports I generate do matter a bit. He asked if any of us on the elevator had seen a show on TV the night before. Weird hey, it was a pretty strange question? Then he asked what we thought the show said about women and their place in society. There were about three of us on the elevator and I had already had the heads up that he could sometimes do this. So BIG MOUTH that I am gave a straight forward and honest answer and was finished just as the elevator door opened on my floor. “Thanks!” he said and I walked off. “Didn’t that intimidate you?” my friend asked and then it hit me. He is just a guy who asked a question and I was just the person who answered it. It didn’t occur to me that he was any more or less important than the question asked and it never occurred to me that my opinion probably mattered nothing to him. It was just an exchange of conversation between two people existing together in a world filled with people.

The world can sometimes assign value to things that really, logically, have no value in it. My family line is “Landed Gentry” and our family name resides in the “Landed Gentry Registry” for England. Because my English ancestors were land owners and Lords and Ladies for some reason it made us more special. I would have loved those people to run across my Great grandfather who ran away from that craziness and had the adventure of a lifetime surveying the Mackenzie River system and Gold Rushing in the Klondike. He ended up Tugging Boats and Log Booms in the Georgia Straight and from what I have heard loved his life and all things in it. He avoided his English family and lived a simple and easy life on the banks of the Courtney River. He died just a few years before my birth but the legacy he left is honored and he remains a beloved member of the history of the Comox Valley.

I reflect often on cultural placement, the pecking order of the playground to the church pew and with all the heart I can muster I tend to generally snub my nose at it. I will never be a fifth or sixth generation Momo and I am not sure why that makes a difference in the abilities I have but for some it does. It’s sad really because I think for the most part people at church really don’t give a hoot how many generations of Mormon you are but still very much honor the pioneer stories and the people who lived them. There were some pretty humungous sacrifices made back then and we all honor them.

We all have some kind of pioneering heritage and with that we have great history running through our bones. My great great grandfather was a pretty incredible man. He was the ambassador to Prussia, owned the Daily Newspaper in London and was an all around amazing fellow. Because his blood runs through my bones it doesn’t make me better or worse that any other person. This is what my great grandma taught me as she was one of the “Homesteading Act” pioneers to travel to Canada on a large steamer and then on a train from Montreal to Winnipeg and finally a wagon to a small homestead this side of Balzac. And by the way – she was the most stubborn Scottish woman you could ever come across and made my grannies life a shear hell in the process. Her life is as much a testament to greatness as the landed gentry side and just as a side note, had any of these ancestors of mine not travelled or become pioneers I would never have had an opportunity to exist. My Dad’s family would have never allowed the union.

History can define us on so many levels and who we are – where we come from matters to how far we have all come but one person is no greater or lesser in the eyes of God for any reason imaginable and proclaiming so is counterproductive to His great plan of salvation – and for the years I was told that “adoption in” makes some one less in heaven I call **** ****. God sees us all as equals with equal opportunity and I believe He holds us accountable to our own truths. This is the gospel according to S. I believe in a benevolent and kind God who sees colours and not just black and white. I’m still typing so thunder bolts have not struck me down. I guess that opinion is forgivable.

So what am I on about? Living and breathing together in a world united by sameness in quality and character.

“The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” ~ Mitch Albom