Hitler and Marilyn Monroe
12 October 2012
Read by 2185 persons
For years, there were the nice bosses, like me, and the dictators. Since I’ve reconciled with the part of me that’s able to dictate, I’ve stopped looking negatively at leaders who give orders. This offers me new possibilities. In emergency situations, the dictator in me has been very useful. Even the violent one has been relevant, once. I find great inner peace in this space of non-duality. I can be one thing, and at another time its opposite, while remaining in harmony with myself.
I still believe that it’s relevant to have good self-knowledge, in order to remain in accordance with our values and resist the urge to conform to models. But my reflection leads me to see that I am a more complex and much vaster being than I believed. The essential thing is to discern the appropriate behavior to adopt in each situation and, above all, to ensure that my intention is always good. It is therefore necessary to get out of the analysis of what is good or bad, of what is beautiful or not. Let’s stop writing codes of ethics that dictate the actions to be avoided and listing policies applicable to everyone at all times. It is our deep motivations that we must observe. We must ask ourselves why we choose one strategy rather than another to defend our territory? To look good or serve the common project?
Why self-knowledge?
Getting out of my inner duality invites me to get out of the duel with the other. How many times do we hear: “I don’t agree with you!” But it’s all the same to us whether we agree or not! The important thing is to share our points of view until the optimal solution emerges. I recently facilitated an exchange that I let turn into a debate. It became an endless argument about whether encouraging initiative is the responsibility of bosses or employees. After asking my interlocutors to tell us what each found interesting in the other’s point of view, they quickly came to the conclusion that it was both. A new path emerged: a solution combining the strengths of each other’s ideas.
How many times have I myself done everything to assert my opinion? For whom? Why? To be right, to win, or to feel more intelligent? I deprived myself of the views of others by thinking about what I would reply instead of really listening. I didn’t seize the opportunity to sound out the opinion of those who rarely speak, but who observe and then see what I don’t see.
Self-knowledge to go from ‘or’ to ‘and’
I spent too much time judging what is good or bad. Life is more complex than that. There is the human and the economic. Employees and bosses. Freedom and control. X and Y. Republicans and Democrats. And, in me, the nice boss and the dictator. The time has come to move from ‘or’ to ‘and’. To include rather than exclude. To look at what unites us rather than what differentiates us. To move from debate to dialogue. And finally, to get out of my inner duality to go towards the other.
Blue or green? Tintin or Captain Haddock? An X or a Y? What if we were a little bit of all that? If we reconciled with all these characters within us? Imagine all that would be possible for us. As each cell contains our entire genetic code, we also possess the entire great genetic code of the universe. “I am Hitler AND Marilyn Monroe,” says Albert Jacquard.
So, tame self-knowledge and dare to explore everything you can be… Without getting lost!
Rémi Tremblay.
Le-manager-urbain.com
Posted online October 12, 2012.
I still believe that it’s relevant to have good self-knowledge, in order to remain in accordance with our values and resist the urge to conform to models. But my reflection leads me to see that I am a more complex and much vaster being than I believed. The essential thing is to discern the appropriate behavior to adopt in each situation and, above all, to ensure that my intention is always good. It is therefore necessary to get out of the analysis of what is good or bad, of what is beautiful or not. Let’s stop writing codes of ethics that dictate the actions to be avoided and listing policies applicable to everyone at all times. It is our deep motivations that we must observe. We must ask ourselves why we choose one strategy rather than another to defend our territory? To look good or serve the common project?
Why self-knowledge?
Getting out of my inner duality invites me to get out of the duel with the other. How many times do we hear: “I don’t agree with you!” But it’s all the same to us whether we agree or not! The important thing is to share our points of view until the optimal solution emerges. I recently facilitated an exchange that I let turn into a debate. It became an endless argument about whether encouraging initiative is the responsibility of bosses or employees. After asking my interlocutors to tell us what each found interesting in the other’s point of view, they quickly came to the conclusion that it was both. A new path emerged: a solution combining the strengths of each other’s ideas.
How many times have I myself done everything to assert my opinion? For whom? Why? To be right, to win, or to feel more intelligent? I deprived myself of the views of others by thinking about what I would reply instead of really listening. I didn’t seize the opportunity to sound out the opinion of those who rarely speak, but who observe and then see what I don’t see.
Self-knowledge to go from ‘or’ to ‘and’
I spent too much time judging what is good or bad. Life is more complex than that. There is the human and the economic. Employees and bosses. Freedom and control. X and Y. Republicans and Democrats. And, in me, the nice boss and the dictator. The time has come to move from ‘or’ to ‘and’. To include rather than exclude. To look at what unites us rather than what differentiates us. To move from debate to dialogue. And finally, to get out of my inner duality to go towards the other.
Blue or green? Tintin or Captain Haddock? An X or a Y? What if we were a little bit of all that? If we reconciled with all these characters within us? Imagine all that would be possible for us. As each cell contains our entire genetic code, we also possess the entire great genetic code of the universe. “I am Hitler AND Marilyn Monroe,” says Albert Jacquard.
So, tame self-knowledge and dare to explore everything you can be… Without getting lost!
Rémi Tremblay.
Le-manager-urbain.com
Posted online October 12, 2012.
