S.Africa: Lessons from my work – Taking my hits alone – Passionate people in Western history

Original Post Date: 2010-11-30 Time: 13:00:03  Posted By: Jan

If you look at Western history, you will see that in our past, a lot of our white ancestors were actually pretty passionate people. If you will look closely at history, a lot of wars involved people on one side (often the losing side) who were deeply motivated and madly passionate about what they did. They went like madmen fighting and doing all that is necessary in order to achieve success.

As Napoleon said: “The moral is to the physical as 3 is to 1”. When people are motivated, they completely out-do themselves. You will see it with the Romans, the ancient Greeks, the French of the Revolution, Confederates, the Rhodesians, the Boers, the Germans under Hitler and under Frederick the Great.

There is a time, when people just give it their all.

I tend in my own way to be a naturally passionate person. I stand up and fight for what I believe in.

I really angered my poor Indian boss again over the attending of the red carpet gala dinner on saturday. I did not even want my photo taken as one of 170 finalists for a set of 10 first prizes.

I will get whatever prize or award they allocated to me. But that is not the issue.

I was extremely outraged by the way very senior management moved in on my system. Now… this is kinda crazy really… these people are SEVERAL LEVELS above me. They can kick me aside in 2 seconds without a further thought if it is their wish. However, I deeply resent interference in work I have done well and which is working beautifully for hundreds of people.

Other managers just take their orders, but that is not my nature. If I believe something is wrong, I stand up and I fight my fight… even from my puny and pathetic and totally powerless position.

A (very attractive) lady was organising the social events and came to meet with me to ask me to come to the event and to have my photograph taken. She said I was the only one of 170 people to refuse to have my photo taken. So I agreed to the photo session. But I was in a very annoyed state at the time. I told her that they must hurry it up and I don’t want to wait around. I actually had to smile at how utterly, incredibly warmly the women organised the photo shoot. I really could not believe how amazingly pleasant they were… and when it was over so quickly, as I had requested, I felt rather sad. It had all been so nice and they had all been so nice.

Some days later the attractive lady accosted me and asked me about the photoshoot. I said it went well and thanks very much. She then tried to sell me on the gala event again. I said “no thanks”. Then she tried to intimidate me by saying: “There will be negative consequences for you”.

I then said to her, “I am fully aware of that, and I am going to do this anyway”. I was not going to let the threat of retribution by management above me, change my mind.

Most people, if given a chance to please management run off like dogs with their tails wagging and are only too happy for any bone to be thrown at them. I too like to please and wag my tail, but I also do have certain limits, and even if some people are powerful, I do not just accept everything. Just because I receive a few pieces of silver I do not necessarily then accept everything.

I have been planning to write to my Indian boss a detailed email analysing what we did, what worked, and what lessons we learned and what I can do next.

But prior to that here are some excerpts from an email I wrote:-

… I apologize for causing you and others some distress. You are not the issue nor the problem and I only have good things to say about what you did.

However, there is something deeper here, which I do not want to involve you in it, but it is a personal decision. It is about making a certain stand on certain things dear to me. I have given this a lot of deep thought and I was fully cognizant of the risks I am running. *ALL* my friends agreed with what you and … had to say. They were very annoyed with my decision too. But, there are some things that go beyond social events. As a social event alone, I was looking forward to this and I was thinking it would be really fun and very classy and that is awesome.

However, I have a message I need to send, no matter the personal consequences. There are some battles one must fight oneself. You have to stand alone and take your hits yourself. And that is what I am doing. You are quite right, I am going to be sorry – but it won't be the first time, nor will it be the last time that I have made my stand in the face of odds. This goes beyond social things, and that is why I said I would even return the prizes, the money, etc if necessary.

I would not have done certain things if I was not deeply passionate about them. But passionate people not only can go the extra mile, but they can also put up an extra fight if they need to – no matter the odds and consequences.

I will be having a one-on-one discussion with … about the real issues and we will reach our own understanding after the event.

I am off to a friend's party on Saturday night. Enjoy the evening. I am sure that you will all make it awesome.

Regards,
Jan

I was thinking about something I said to someone the other day in anger. I think there is something burning deeply in me. I think it comes from my own situation; from being a Rhodesian; from being an Afrikaner; from being a white in Africa. There is some deep kind of burning anger inside of me… a rage that burns white hot at times. It is a FURY that I do not like being tread on by others – regardless if they are the majority. I have a certain deep personal desire to live my life the way I see fit, and I go ballistic when people start infringing on my rights and shunting me around at will. I will be me. I will be respected and treated with respect, by all, WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT. And that is a message I intend sending to management up there… regardless of the personal cost to me.

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