Meditation required?

I attended the South Jeffco Business Alliance Meeting recently.  One of the presenters was Lisa Moore.  The other was Dr. James G. Wellborn from Children’s Hospital of Colorado.  The theme was “Work-Life Balance”.  The top half of Lisa’s handout reflects positive moods; the bottom half… well… we already know those, true?  

Both presenters discussed how stress at work and stress in our personal lives are so intertwined that each impacts the other and both impact our mood.  Each presenter emphasized what happens to us is less important than how we react to what happens to us.  As Charles Swindell put it: 

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. 

I was reminded of such a reaction recently when my wife, obviously frustrated and exasperated said, “I have to call Amazon support.”  A simple situation?  Calling support?  Well, it definitely put her mood in the bottom half of Lisa’s card. 

My wife sells personalized dog and horse products on Amazon (Thriving Pets International).  She qualified several years ago for their special program supporting small businesses called Amazon Handmade.  It has been great for her business, but it comes with a price. 

Of course, lots of companies sell on Amazon.  According to Wikipedia: 

Amazon is the world's largest online retailer and marketplace, earning the moniker “The Everything Store”. 

Selling on “The Everything Store” for those other companies comes with a price, too.  Oh, it’s not just the Amazon fees; their price is not merely monetary.  The price I’m referring to today pertains to accessing service and support.  Amazon is big and it shows, LOL!  (I wonder if they sell medication to help before we call their support?) 

My wife’s grim mood made me wonder instead of medication she might do a little meditation before calling Amazon support.  What do you think?  Do you hate calling a vendor’s support line?  Of course, vendors have been constantly changing their support lines; from on-shore to off-shore; from telephone to online; from humans to chat bots.  I can’t wait to see what Artificial Intelligence has in store for us all!  Can you spell Rx? 

I can only imagine what the mood is for those human client support people still providing the best service they can.  We clients are demanding:

After exhausting every possible way to assist an irate client for the past 45 minutes, and then concluding her phone conversation in the professional manner she had been trained for, the client service representative was heard to let out a pent-up, rhetorical question of frustration, 

“What does this customer want me to do about their problem, perform magic”??? 

Gary A. Pokorn 

We have many daily opportunities for a spoiled mood.  Self-control; now that seems to be the ticket.  Others we listen to can make self-control sound so simple.  It must be me; I must be a slow learner because I struggle heeding their straightforward advice : 

            If things go wrong, don’t go with them. 

                        Roger Babson 

During the meeting Dr. James G. Wellborn presented this questionnaire about hassles and uplifts.  The Top 10 hassles for middle-aged people wasn’t a real surprise.  However, it does seem to indicate that for all the negative talk we have about our jobs; our workload; our boss… calling customer support… its what’s happening outside of our occupation that’s dominating our mood. 

Maybe Lisa has it right – meditation (vs. medication) is a salvo to ease our mood. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.