Loyal Liar?

Loyalty is a pledge of truth to oneself and others. -Ada Velez Boardley

Do you cheat on yourself? Are you really loyal on the inside? Not to other people, to yourself?

As a small business owner, the theme of loyalty keeps coming up. Just about anybody will tell you that their biggest frustration is finding people with a strong work ethic. People that will actually roll up their sleeves, do more than is expected each day and ask for nothing in return; simply because they appreciate the opportunity to be gainfully employed.

Now on the surface, this may seem like a mundane and trivial conversation, but it still begs the question as to why people are changing. Why are they becoming less hard-working. Why is there no more old-school loyalty when you gave a huge piece of your life to any effort; not just your job but your family?

There’s no doubt that the foundation is a bit cracked. But are we really a people gone bad? Is the growing divide between the old school and the new generation really necessary at all. Of course there is always two sides to a story. Maybe the old school needs to consider the pressures of this crazy new world.

People today are overwhelmed with choices. Access to opportunity has never been greater. Therefore, the speed at which we must make decisions is at a break-neck pace. The need for guidance and mentoring has never been greater. But what is a kid supposed to do when he comes home to his mother, drops the books on the floor and flies out the door to violin practice and gets picked up by the father who lives on the other side of town?

What’s the kid supposed to think? Moving at top speed and never having the time to relax and sort out the challenges of life. Where’s the guidance when the parents are either pulling the disciplinary punches or worse, airing their frustrations out on the kid?!

Flash forward and this kid’s in school; self-esteem already on a slippery slope and other kids poking away to advance their own self-image at the expense of the weakest. The kid begins to question his own capabilities. Every time a challenge comes, he tries half-heartedly but gets knocked down, he retreats into an even more isolated place and reaffirms that he’s a failure.

By the time he enters the work force he’s barely hanging on. The pain and suffering are so bad that he slips further down hill by escaping into the comfort of the drug world. And now we expect him to hold a job? We expect him to do more than is paid for? We expect him to think for himself? We want his loyalty?

Who are we kidding? This kid can’t even be loyal to himself! Why? Because he doesn’t know how to be! There’s an increasing likelihood that most kids are being raised in broken families, so there’s really nobody there to dust them off when they fall down. There’s nobody there telling them that falling down is just part of life and that getting up is the next move!

Think about your own life. When you got beaten up was anybody there for you? Did they show you how to get over it? Did they explain it happens to everybody; that nobody is immune? Did they tell you stories of those who had come from the depths of poverty and underprivilige and then rose to prominence because they always got up! They never took it personally, even though it hurt deeply, and they went forward.

If there was nobody teaching you that, you would have lost confidence. You would not believe that you could do it. You would not know that inside of you were all the raw materials to win! By default, you would not have any sense of loyalty. Not to the world, but to yourself!

What do I mean? Well consider your dreams. You have them burning inside you each day, sometimes all day long. Nobody can stop them. Your internal success mechanism yearns for victory and crafts a real winner in the theatre of the mind! You see yourself as bullet-proof, getting exactly what you want. But then it crashes. Maybe you wake up startled and realize that it was just a dream. It could never be! That’s precisely where you cheat!

You cheat on yourself because you’re not loyal to these positive thoughts. You don’t act upon your dreams. You keep them locked far away in the depths of your mind and keep them silent. When people ask you what you like to do, you lie. You never really do tell them the truth because you’re afraid of what they’ll think. They’ll just laugh, you rationalize to yourself.

However, there are those times when the dreams are screaming as they push you to a point of inspirational dissatisfaction. They are mad that you cheated on them! They pump the adrenaline through your system and make you wake up in the middle of the night! They demand your loyalty! They tell you to stop patronizing the world and take action!

You realize that loyalty to yourself is something that can’t be denied. You must give yourself a chance while embracing realistic expectations about what it takes to make them happen. You eventually realize that there is no quick fix or instant reward that can ever compare to the spoils of hard work. An effort that has nothing to do with where you work or for whom you work. It’s really all about you and what is inside you. How will you ever be your best unless you start by making a committment to being loyal to your own capabilitites and give yourself a real chance to take on whatever life throws in your direction, regardless of your background. The world might have given you a tough starting position, but your own loyalty can propel you to Victory Lane!

Tags: Inspiration, Loyalty, Motivation, Self Improvement