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Think Like a Rat -- and Improve Your Life! |
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In This Issue:
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Issue 345 - - February 27, 2007
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Welcome! And what's new...
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3. Don’t Fire Me – I’m sick
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1. Think Like A Rat -- and Improve Your life!
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4. Humor -- Don't Say That
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2. A donut and a book please
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We talk about “being in the rat race,” but this is probably unfair. It’s actually demeaning to the rats. Rats won’t stay in a race when it’s obvious there’s no cheese. The popular little book, “Who Moved My Cheese” showed how even smart rats quickly look for new routes to follow when the cheese is gone. Humans, on the other hand, seem to often get themselves into traps from which they never escape. Some research shows that up to 70 percent of white-collar workers are unhappy with their jobs – ironically, they are also spending more and more time working.
Jan Halper, a Palo Alto psychologist, has spent ten years exploring the careers and emotions of over 4000 male executives. He found that 58 percent of those in middle management felt they had wasted many years of their lives struggling to achieve their goals. They were bitter about the many sacrifices they had made during those years.
Just recently I had an attorney tell me she feels like a prostitute. She said that in exchange for e very nice paycheck she had given up her soul and her life. Each week I talk to individuals who feel trapped in their current work. They talk about being demeaned, belittled, and emotionally abused. And yet they stay; hoping against all odds that things will magically improve. Some seem to take a martyr’s attitude that God is working something out or that Satan is mercilessly attacking them.
Rats, however, move on once they realize the cheese is gone or perhaps was never there. Rats would probably be embarrassed to be labeled “being in the human race” for doing ridiculous things like continuing to go to a job that they hated every day. Take action to move toward whatever is pure, good and honorable – in your life and in your work.
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From the Bible:
“You are living a brand new kind of life that is continually learning more and more of what is right, and trying constantly to be more and more like Christ who created this new life within you.” Colossians 3: 10 (TLB)
Can you think like a rat today? What is an area in your life where you need to walk away and seek a more peaceful solution?
“A man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of getting his bread.” Henry David Thoreau
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A man who was fired by IBM for visiting adult Internet sites at work is suing the company for $5 million, claiming he is an Internet addict who deserves treatment and sympathy rather than dismissal. James Pacenza, 58, says he visits chat rooms to deal with his traumatic stress from seeing his best friend killed during an Army patrol in 1969. He says the stress caused him to become an addict and he claims protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act. He had been warned repeatedly and the IBM guidelines clearly prohibit his actions.
Let’s see, I think we could take this same approach for stealing, murder, obesity, or nose picking. Once we start down this slippery slope of blaming for our current actions, there really is no reasonable stopping point. Is it any surprise that companies are rapidly moving to using independent contractors, contingency workers, temps, and consultants to avoid the risk of having to deal with this kind of unreasonable claim? This guy will back himself into a corner – feel sorry for himself and find that no one will risk hiring him again under any circumstances.
It’s amazing the opportunities that open up when we accept responsibility for ourselves.
And you can read John Miller’s book QBQ and find out why companies all over the country are begging him to come speak to their employees.
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