Tag: Work

Perspective

Recently, I discovered that one of my coworkers, who is an immigrant to this country, had survived the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. I am trying to protect their identity a bit, but they described life as a teenager being besieged in their home city for months in 1992 without running water, or reliable food supply. After the war was over, they came to the US with a mere $50, a college degree, and no idea what to do next. Thankfully, my coworker was able to get on their feet, establish their career here, and now have a growing family.

However, what’s interesting is that if my coworker had never confided their past, I would never have guessed. By all appearances they were just another career adult. I’ve had a coworker who grew up in Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East, but again, it’s not obvious in a professional work setting and they only confided in me much later in our friendship.

It underscores how many people around you, who by all accounts seem like normal, functional adults, may be carrying terrible traumas in their lives. It is not always wars, natural disasters, and ethnic conflicts either; it can also be personal, domestic traumas, emotional scarring that fades with time, but never fully disappears. It is said that 1 out of 4 women in the US, possibly more, have been abused and that means that out of all the women I work with, correspond with, or hang out with, one out of four, maybe even one out of three of them may be carrying out terrible scars from their past.

And of course, it’s not limited to women, either. It’s not hard to scratch the surface and find men who have also suffered terrible traumas, abuse, etc., and carry this with them for the rest of their lives. I remember my best friend in grade school suffering terrible, physical abuse from his father. He grew into a pretty unhappy teen and eventually the family moved away. I didn’t comprehend any of this until too late, and lost touch with him before we could talk about it together. I’ve always regretted that.

Being an adult is hard enough as it is, but also carrying around terrible traumas makes it even harder because you can never fully erase them. You can move on, find happiness, and still grow as a human being, but the scar will always be there.

Photo by Mokhalad Musavi on Pexels.com

My coworker who survived the Yugoslav wars, for their part, told us that they decided not to focus on the past and instead focus on the here and now: kids, career, helping others in the same field, and so on. They joke among other survivors that they still get a bit twitchy sometimes due to their traumatic past. Yet at the same time, they don’t want to be weighed down by it either. They want to move on and look toward the future.

In learning to understand others, I think it’s important to consider painful past they may have had. It doesn’t always excuse the behavior, but it does provide some perspective.

Screenshots from the game Chrono Trigger.

Bad Bosses

Usually I don’t like to talk about my personal life, especially work,1 but this past week or two has been pretty rough. I’ve been working with another team on a project, and I found out recently that the manager of that project was unhappy with me, and complained to my own manager. Further, the same manager made an under-handed comment during a meeting yesterday, almost certainly aimed at me, rubbing salt on the wound.

My own manager has done his best to be supportive, but I can’t lie, getting criticized really stings, especially given all I’ve done for that team in the past.

In the last 24 hours, I went through a range of emotions: rage, revenge, quitting the job entirely, then despair because I need the job, etc. The fact is is that a steady, secure income is hard to come by these days, and as the sole bread-winner of a family, I have to be extra mindful of where I go, and sometimes have to just “suck it up” to provide for my family. I am certain I am not the only person who is in this bind, either. Each time we get up and head to work, we are forced to “sing for our bread” whether we want to or not. Capitalism sucks.

Even a Buddhist text near and dear to my heart, the Larger Sutra of Immeasurable Life2 (link and link), composed more than 2,000 years ago, touches on this:

But in this world [as opposed to the Pure Land of the Buddha] much evil is committed, and few are provided for naturally; people must work hard to get what they want. Since they intend to deceive each other, their minds are troubled, their bodies exhausted, and they drink bitterness and eat hardship.

Translation by Rev. Hisao Inagaki

So, yeah, as Office Space rightly said: work sucks, and yet we have to put up with it to survive.3

But the sting to my pride, coupled with the fact that I have to suck it up and continue to work with this person for the forseeable future makes me feel rotten. I do it for the sake of my kids and wife, but it still makes me feel rotten inside.

So, I started thinking about things like the Eight Winds of Buddhism, and the story of Hakuin the 18th century Zen master in Japan who was unfairly blamed for something but shrugged it off anyway, or the story of the tsunami and the Zen master. In each case, the lesson is to not get hung up on one’s reputation, and gain freedom in the process. This makes sense, but is a lot harder to implement in practice.

I suppose in a more Pure Land Buddhist, less Zen Buddhist context, the goodwill of Amida Buddha extends to all beings equally regardless of their character. Even if the world finds fault in you, Amida Buddha extends his goodwill nonetheless. The Eight Winds may blow this way and that, but it doesn’t matter. No need to get hung up on perfection, or criticizing yourself. In the end, you will be fine.

Namu Amida Butsu

P.S. Another thing I forgot to mention is that regardless of Buddhist sect or practice, it never hurts to stop and contemplate goodwill in Buddhism. You don’t have to like the other person, but you can extend a sense of goodwill toward them.

P.P.S. The oppressiveness of the working class isn’t necessarily limited to modern capitalist societies. Back in the Hellenistic Period of history, the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt was known for their oppressive bureacracy too:

1 Folks might be surprised where I currently work, but it’s definitely unrelated to my blog in every respect. Plus, it’s generally best not to mix the two.

2 This sutra is also known by various other names: the Larger Sutra, the Immeasurable Life Sutra, the Longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra, and so on. More on the Pure Land Buddhist canon here.

3 There are limits though. If someone is subject to harassment, intimidation or discrimination, that’s when the environment is simply too toxic. No amount of patience can fix that. It will erode one’s mental health. If you are in this situation, please do not think “sucking it up” will make it better. Sometimes a change in environment is the best thing you can do for yourself. At the very least, talk to someone you trust, preferably outside of work.