I’m a huge fan of the holiday season and I fully embrace all that it has to offer: the frantic shopping, numerous drop-in parties, countless feasts, quality time spent with family members – I take it all in. Yet, if you are anything like me, there is a sense of relief once the festivities end. Indeed, one of my favourite days over the past couple of weeks was New Year’s Day – a time when the holiday frantic pace seems to shift into slow motion and there are few expectations, if any, for a day where everything is essentially shut down. Although it is technically the start of the upcoming year, for me, January 1st seems to be a day in limbo, allowing for some meaningful reflection on what has passed, while speculating on what is to come.
One of my New Year’s Day rituals involves a review of the top news stories of the past year. This year, there were many remarkable ones, but most of the major global events that hit the headlines in 2010 centered around disasters of some sort: the BP Oil Spill, the Earthquake in Haiti and the Chilean Mine Collapse to name a few.
I needn’t go into the details of these events nor their outcomes, but of interest to me are the ways in which people associated with these tragedies responded to their situations. For example, Tony Hayward, former CEO of British Petroleum, has been credited with two now infamous quotes. In his initial response to the oil spill, he claimed: “I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest.” Later, when the magnitude of the catastrophe became known, he was quoted as saying “there’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do, I’d like my life back.” If he was given the opportunity to hit the rewind button, I suspect that Mr. Hayward would have phrased his sentiments differently. Ultimately, after these two quotes spread, he was characterized as one who shirked responsibility and was most concerned about his own affairs in the wake of the immeasurable impact of his company’s failure to deal with the situation in an appropriate manner. His subsequent relocation to a different BP project a few months after the oil spill started came as no surprise.
Fortunately, Tony Hayward and his response to difficult circumstances was only one of the examples highlighted through the media this past year. We were also exposed to thirty-three Chilean miners who through perseverance and uncanny resiliency overcame insurmountable odds to survive being trapped for 69 days beneath the ground. As well, how could one forget the incredible compassion displayed on a global scale to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti? The impoverished country is still in terrible shape and a vast amount of work is still required to restore stability, but the outpouring of generosity through financial donations to Haiti and various forms of community service by millions of people during the aftermath was truly inspiring.
How we react to adversity is the most genuine test of our character. Fortunately, most of us will likely never have to endure anything similar to the natural or “unnatural” disasters we’ve seen this past year. However, we will all face difficulty of some sort in the future. I’d encourage you to learn from those who appeared in the headlines last year and approach all of 2011’s challenges through modeling appropriate character for your son: by accepting responsibility where necessary, and managing what comes your way with perspective, perseverance and compassion.
Thanks for reading,
Scott
