Skip to main content

Shannon's Rules

While scrolling through some old meeting notes eternally memorialized on iCloud this morning,  (along with dozens of shopping lists: delete, delete, delete....) I discovered one very brief and obscure entry from a seminar I attended. Just one line. All it said was "Boston - Shannon's Rules."

I laughed out loud (literally LOL'd), remembering how the speaker -- an attorney -- related the meaning of this phrase he coined himself, referring to a behavioral phenomenon his childhood in Boston.  At the Shannon family home, you see, the many brothers and sisters living under the same roof had, by necessity, developed a sort of tribal law, comprised of all their own rules for every game. In a kids kingdom, the majority rules, especially when the majority is all in the same family. No matter what the game, from tag to kick ball, they had their own set of rules at the Shannon house, and every guest was at the mercy of them, no matter how bizarre they happened to be. "When in Rome..."...Shannon's rules.

When you're working under any kind of adverse situation, it can feel the same way. Logic and reason are picked out and tossed aside like those bits of gross wilted lettuce you invariably find in your pre-bagged salad mix...Standards of common courtesy and kindness at scraped off into the same wastebasket, and you're left with a hollow set of expectations that have nothing whatsoever to do with being human -- or humane.

That may be the way the Shannon's play, but when did you decide to scrap your ethics, suppress your passion, and gut your values, for the sake of winning their game?

We can't abandon every job or situation we find uncomfortable or overly challenging, but if we find ourselves in a place completely devoid of everything we value, it's time to question whether you're there for a purpose, or just for a paycheck.

Meanwhile, don't play along. Don't forget who you are.

"[The Lord] grants a treasure of common sense to the honest.
    He is a shield to those who walk with integrity." -- Proverbs 2:7-8



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Friday Frenzy

How the weeks fly by! It's Friday, already, and here we are, dizzied by the sight of our to-do lists...so many boxes, still unchecked! Where do you begin? It seems that your desk needs tidying up, your closet needs cleaning, or perhaps the fridge needs to be cleaned out. Rather than face the mountain of tasks we should be doing, we plunge into a frenzy of something I call " productive procrastination. " If it requires explanation, perhaps it's not one of your unfortunate inclinations, as it is mine. For clarification, however, allow me to define the phrase: exerting your efforts in otherwise non-urgent, comparatively mindless tasks, rather than the more urgent ones requiring your full attention. It's something we all do, once in a awhile--something I've done from an early age. The phenomenon (as I choose to categorize it, since it seems to take on an energy and behavior all its own) presents itself whenever feel unequal to the priority tasks at hand. For w...
Post a Comment
Read more

NEMESIS, TRAPS AND DIGRESSIONS, OH MY!

Let's begin at the beginning. You have challenges. You have issues. You have enemies. All of the above would be true for any of us -- from slacker to slave, from victim to hero -- but there is actually one very small but highly distinguishing characteristic: perspective. Yes, the thing that makes mountains out of molehills--and vice versa--is undoubtedly the key to success or failure, and the common thread through the story of every hero. Something interesting about perspective: it can be found, lost, and regained -- although sometimes elusive, it's always attainable.  Through the next week, we will explore the various things responsible for our lost perspective, and talk about how to get it back. I was about to say that there are three things that generally rob us of our proper perspective, but that would imply that it can be taken from us, by force. The fact is, unfortunately, we sometimes "lose" our perspective as easily as we misplace our keys, cell phone, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Getting Smarter

How can you be specific about your goals when they are just a bunch of vague, foggy, wishes, hopes and dreams? It's time to take that pie-in-the-sky endeavor down from its celestial pedestal and see if it tastes as good as it looks from afar. (Forgive me for bringing up desserts so early in your diet-shackled day)...Is it really, truly unachievable, or that your perception because you don't currently have the means or mechanisms to reach it? If there is a yellow-brick road to your dream, I promise you that underneath lies a foundation of solid research. It's the best preparation for turning those dreams into reality. Would we have ever reached the moon, or even this continent, without it? As brilliant and passionate as the explorers of Earth and space were, without their tedious hours buried in books at a drafting table, we would probably all still be back in the old world, and certainly never beyond it, thinking the Earth was flat and all of space was unattainable.  ...
Post a Comment
Read more