Quote #1: Kind Words Are...

I am one of those strange people who enjoy technology but who also enjoys good old fashioned pen and paper. One of the things that I have done since forever-ago was to get one of those daily diaries at the end of one year and use it to help plan my life and make sure I know what I need to to when. Frosty and some of my work colleagues laugh at me, preferring to use online diaries, but there's something comforting about writing down my To Do list on paper, feeling those things that are spinning around in my head streaming through my arm and spilling out through my hand, into my pen and then onto the page. Something special about noting down important dates - project deadlines, meetings, work functions, travel, parties, visits, family functions.

One of the best things about these diaries is that, at the bottom of every page they have a quote. I don't read each day's quote on the day it's written on. But when I'm bored in long meetings I have a bit of time, I like to go through the quotes and find ones that are relevant and useful. 

Recently, I have been trying to think up a good weekly feature that I can use for my blog. One that will encourage me to write and post a bit more regularly and I thought that sharing a quote and some thoughts around it, even just a few lines, would be a really good way of helping to keep my posting regular but at the same time giving it variety. 

And so, here's the first quote of the week:

Picture: Sunset from Table Mountain taken by yours truly

As a first quote, I thought that this was a goodie. I think that this concept can be applied to pretty much every aspect of life. From work to home, friends to strangers - giving people kind words is probably one of the easiest and most effective ways of making your life and other's lives easier. 

Chatting with a colleague a little while ago, we were noting how unflappable one of our clients was and admiring how he managed to deal with anything that was thrown at him with calm and graciousness. My colleague had recently spent a bit of time with this client and he shared with me that this particular client had noticed some other guy getting frustrated and made an off-hand comment that he had made a decision a long time ago to not get frustrated. Let me repeat that - he made a decision to not get frustrated. I think it's easier said than done and for some this is an easier thing to achieve than others. But even if you are able to acknowledge that you are feeling frustrated and make a conscious effort to keep your demeanour calm and pleasant, you've won half the battle.

From personal experience and observation, getting frustrated and dishing out unkind words in the heat of the moment when people bring you their issues or ask you silly questions leaves those people less likely to comfortably approach you with their problems or questions in the future. By contrast if you listen to what another person has to say and, even if you disagree with them or think they're being silly, let them finish, you can always ask for some time to process and think their comment over and get back to them later with a response.

This is something that I see the importance of more and more in my life and even though I don't always get it right, I hope that I can work on getting this right more often than I get it wrong. I would rather be seen as kind and approachable than seen as frustrated and unapproachable. Plus, if you are generally kind and unflappable, then when you do get frustrated or angry, people will take you way more seriously than they take the person who blows their top at every teeny-tiny issue.