It seems to happen every year. You tell yourself, this year I’m not going to let it happen, but then it happens. As the end of the year approaches and we all talk about how the stores are putting up Christmas decorations earlier and earlier. Right after Halloween, or even before Halloween, we see Christmas trees showing up in all of the large chain stores. We say, “it’s too soon”. Then we let the Holiday do what they do best, creep right up behind us and scare the stuffing out of us because, “AHHH, Christmas is NEXT WEEK”.
As part of my annual preparation for the The Holidays, I have a tradition, like many of you, to watch my most favorite Christmas programs. With technology today we do not have to wait till they are aired on one of the three major television networks, but we have then instantly at our finger tips.
I was struck this year when I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, we all know it, we all love it. At Cage, we even have a “Charlie Brown Christmas Tree”. What got me, even in 1965, Charlie Brown struggles with the meaning of Christmas, and the “commercialism” wrapped around the holidays.
We seem to revel against it every year. We push it back from coming and then it takes us by surprise. We push back on the commercialism and yet it is wrapped around the entire celebration. Charlie Brown and many of us struggle with the meaning of Christmas. But it is simple, “peace and good will towards everyone” we want to pay attention to the human located inside of everyone we come in-contact.
Whenever we have problems or conflict, it’s easy to treat the issue like a puzzle to be solved. Especially in the technology field, we approach problems like machines completing a task, but any difficult problem is almost always a human problem. And we have to remember, rarely do real people act as malign antagonists. Most often, people act with good intentions making the best decisions they can with the information they possess at the time.
We must approach everyone and every task remembering that behind the facade of email text, there’s a real person, a fully developed human being who is also dealing with their in-laws for Christmas and having to buy last minute gifts and hoping that the package arrives from Amazon in time to wrap The Most Amazing Gift for their Kids or Significant other. So it’s at this hectic, but magical season I invite everyone – You, Myself and Cage included – to join us wishing all around you Peace and Good Will during this Holiday Season.