I have decided to put an end to my life long trivial pursuit
of following-the-leader. One of the
signs that it was time for this divorce came to me this summer while I was out
for a walk with my wife. We had stopped
by a mountain stream to soak our feet, and I noticed a group of preteen boys jumping
into a pool in the river upstream from us.
I was a bit confused about why one after another the boys would take
turns launching themselves from a large rock and leap into the air, where they then
contorted their bodies in such a way that when they reached the water surface
their faces and crotches smacked into the water in what appeared to be a very
painful impact.
At first, I thought maybe the poor kids were in need of some
diving lessons. Then I saw a group of
similar aged girls on the shore of the river who seemed to mostly be ignoring
the antics of the boys, and I wondered if the painful water flops were some
sort of attempt to catch the girl’s attention.
But then it dawned on me as I watched the boys one after another repeat
a new version of the twisted-plop, that the boys were simply following the
rules for that profound childhood game of Follow-The-Leader.
You would think the pain and humiliation of repeatedly
playing this game would be enough for a growing boy to find something better to
do with his time. But like the boys in
the game, I have had a hard time letting go of what has amounted to a lifetime
of basically following fools. Twenty
years ago, I even got a leadership related masters degree, somehow thinking
that if I better understood the theories behind the leader, than perhaps the
game would come to hold greater meaning for me.
Once I graduated, I even figured I would find a job where I could work
for a more enlightened leader, or perhaps even join the ranks of the hallowed
leaders myself.
Eventually, I did figure out that 30 years or more of being
a professional follow-the-leader-er did have some rewards, and I was able to
quit my paid gaming days and live off the pension my life of folly had provided
me with. However, like all professional
game players, I have had a difficult time just sitting on the sidelines
watching everybody else continuing to get smacked around, because their leaders
instructed them to do so. So, I
continued to look for ways to get back into the game, on a volunteer basis. I clung to the idea that maybe there could
still be good leaders, who were guided not by the paycheck, but by looking out
for the people, and the planet.
After some extended, long winded efforts to prove that
leaders could indeed be worthy of following, I realized that in a healthy
ecosystem, there really are no leaders.
None of the participants need to be told or guided by some more powerful
or wiser entity how to behave. They quickly
learn to get along, and any smackdowns they might receive reminded them to
cooperate with the other players, or suffer the ultimate penalty, which is
ejection from the ecosystem in one form or another.
I am not sure where this conclusion will take me, but my
experiments in ecological-leadership have hopefully come to an end. I post this final summation of my findings
not to tell anybody else what to do, but hopefully to remind myself that if I
am feeling like I was smacked in the face and groin again, it is likely the
result of picking up my old habits and following some fool. For anyone interested in finding out where
this fool has gone, you may follow any of my newfound foolish antics I feel like
sharing at my Places I Am blog.
Note to self - so long follower, and may your journeys
always be guided by yourself, and not some fool like me.
