She Called My Mom

This week I had a discussion with a teacher that knew one of my former teachers from 9th grade. I had to chuckle when I heard her name because this teacher and I bumped heads often. By mid-year, the phone calls to my mom at work were becoming more regular due to my smart mouth in class. In my adolescent opinion, her comments in class were deserving of my quick reply and I was not about to lose a battle of words with anyone. In hindsight, I most definitely crossed a lot of lines that I shouldn't have. At some point, it reached a breaking point with my mother. I had been marched from class into a teacher's lounge where we interrupted my mom at work with another phone call. After the teacher spoke with her, I took the phone. My mom did not care to hear my side of the story, or really even the teacher's side. She had had enough of all of it. What she said to me was something that I couldn't forget. She was tired of the calls to work and told me that it was my job to change it. Whatever I was doing, whether it felt justified or not, was not bringing about the action that anyone wanted.  If I wanted the teacher to stop calling my mom (and I did) then I had to change what I was doing.

Some part of that did not seem fair at the time, but there was some genius in it. We do not control how people act or react to us as individuals, but we do always control how we react, even in the midst of adversity. None of what was happening to me in that class felt fair to me at that time, but if I wanted something to change, then I was just as responsible as anyone for changing it. There are many things in life and in our jobs that do not seem right or fair and while we cannot change many of those things, we do control so much of the outcome related to us. If the results you are getting are not what you want, and you can't seem to change the people or events that cause them, then think about your reaction and how that can change to create a new outcome. A new strategy can work and get you what you want in the end.