An Open Letter

Dear Friend,

I am a sucker for superheroes. Every summer, the theaters fill up with the latest Superman, Batman, or Green Lantern. Most of the movies are completely forgettable, but I always enjoy them in the moment. There is something about a superhero's courage and confidence. Superheroes are bold. They see a problem, and they fix it. They see a bad guy, and they punch him.

If you are like me, there are people in your daily life and work that you sometimes want to punch. They may be a real problem for others too. Maybe they are lazy, sloppy, inefficient, incompetent, negative, or just plain hateful. In many workplace situations like this, we want to act like superheroes.

Our culture expects courage and action and boldness and strength. We like our leaders tough, so we try to act tough ourselves, in business meetings, in memos, on phone calls with clients and coworkers. Sometimes it is good to be bold. But often, we can reach out to our friends and coworkers with a little more love, patiently appealing to their sense of charity and goodness and justice.

Then maybe people will extend grace to us when we are not at our best.
Sincerely,



posted by Will Ravelob at the PHIAA e-group