I ended up watching way too much of the news coverage yesterday. I am not interested on commenting on politics or politicians….my only relation to them is that I obey the laws they make and pay the taxes they require and . Other than that, I hold myself to a much higher standard and accountability.
But I was thinking about this subject of “culture”. Nevermind, the culture behind that big black door, I wondered what the culture is in your workplace?
When I first started work….I worked in a department where the culture was not at all one that I could ever feel comfortable in. I just had to keep my head down and crack on with work, keeping myself busy. But the conversations around me, the attitudes that were regularly displayed, the habitual behaviours – it was a culture I fought not to be suffocated by.
That was not easy. It can be like swimming against the current, walking into oncoming gales, remaining blinkered through a frightening storm.
There are all sorts of issues that you could blame on a very wrong prevailing culture that has existed in the past. The mistreatment, harassment, and discrimination against women in workplaces was part of a prevailing culture that existed for decades (arguably for much much longer).
There are so many wrongs that have become “norms” because of a prevailing culture, associates having a negative affect on each other, blurring and muddying decency, integrity and trusted values.
This post has nothing to do with the government, it has absolutely nothing to do with Pandemic-related issues, I am just observing how much courage and conviction it can take not to be immersed by a prevailing culture in areas that are clearly unhealthy, unwholesome and are actually harmful. We are living in critical times, that are hard to deal with. Keeping a clear grasp on goodness, not being swept along by propaganda, media influence, social media influence, and the whirlpool like currents of popular opinion is a challenge.
We do have free will, and many of us appreciate legal freedoms, but when a prevailing culture is finding pleasure in violence, drunkenness, cruelty, racism,…and things that clearly threaten health, families, communities….it is deeply admirable that some hold fast to their integrity.
Caramel 