JOINT BASE CHARLESTON, S.C. –
As the world continues to struggle through this global economic recession, I wanted to take a moment to talk about resources. Specifically, the most finite and fixed of resources ... time. The thing about time is that whether you're a four-star general, the most junior service member, or a new-born child, we all have the same amount - just 24 hours a day. It's arguably the most precious resource we have and consequently we need to be judicious in how we "spend" it. I'd ask that we consciously invest some of it in building our own personal safety nets.
How many times have you found yourself day dreaming about the perfect life you wish you had? The one where your house is always clean, the kids always get along, your spouse always agrees with you, and somehow the bills find a way to pay for themselves. Then the phone rings and snaps you back to reality where there are groceries to buy, the kids are hungry, tired and bored and the car's in the shop ... again. It's easy to fall into the Disney dream where a fairy godmother or a knight in shining armor saves the day and everything wraps up with a neat and happy ending. But as we all know, Disney isn't real. Sooner or later life is going to throw us some hard punches. It's not a question of if, but rather when, how many and how fast.
Despite our best efforts, we simply can't control life. Loved ones pass away, relationships fail, illnesses strike ... these are the realities that come with the ups and downs of life. While we can't control these things, we can control how we react to them and how we ready ourselves to absorb their inevitable impact. Accepting that, we need to prepare for them, but how? The answer is through the construction of our own personal safety nets ... safety nets viewed through the lens of Comprehensive Airmen Fitness.
As many of us discussed during our Feb. 18 Wingman Day, Comprehensive Airmen Fitness is an approach geared towards improving our individual and collective resiliency. Personally, I view it as a good way to describe that critical emotional safety net that keeps me on my feet in spite of life's punches. I look at it this way; my safety net's frame has four pillars (or posts) that serve to suspend and anchor it: physical fitness, social fitness, mental fitness and spiritual fitness. While my safety net will still cushion my fall if one or two of my pillars aren't as solid, it's easy to see that it'll work best with all four pillars fully in place and firmly planted. So it's in my best interest to invest some of my 24-hour day in keeping the foundation of all of my pillars solid and in good shape.
Pillars alone though, won't do the trick as I still need my net. My safety net is where the five "C's" of Comprehensive Airmen Fitness (care, commit, connect, communicate and celebrate) come into play. Teammates (my family, friends, coworkers, chaplain, Wingmen and Shipmates) are what make up the fabric of my safety net. They are the people on which I plan to depend and lean on when life throws that next combination of body blows. The key is to invest and strengthen those relationships now so that they'll be there for me when the time comes for me to depend on them down the road. The same is true for you.
So how do we build those relationships? We do it by caring for our teammates, respecting them for who they are and for the unique perspectives they bring. We do it by committing to them, letting them know that we'll be there for them in their time of need, just as we know they'll be there for us. And we do it by connecting with them, reaching out to learn what it is they value and understand their unique life circumstances. Caring, committing and connecting are done through communication, and it's through that communication that our teammates will come to know us just as we come to know them. The celebratory piece of the five "C's" then comes naturally to us as we recognize and applaud the personal and professional accomplishments of our teammates and their families.
In bringing this back full-circle, let me revisit that precious resource of time. We're all inundated with an endless stream of suspenses at work; we have personal responsibilities to maintain the house, pay the bills, and keep the car running and yet somehow on top of that, many of us are finding time to pursue degrees. These are all important things and they have to be done. Considering that, you may be thinking you don't have time to solidify your pillars and expand your safety net. What I would ask is can you afford not to?
I started this article stating time is arguably the most precious resource we have and that consequently we need to be judicious in how we spend it. Having personally absorbed multiple body blows, shortly followed by a hook and an upper cut when my pillars and safety net weren't in the best of shape, I'm convinced there's a much more precious resource out there ... friendship. True friendships don't happen overnight and they don't happen without effort and sacrifice. But they are the strength of that safety net that allows us to weather the barrage of punches life is guaranteed to throw at us. How could we not choose to spend some of that precious resource of time on the most precious resource of friendship? From where I sit, we simply can't afford not to.