As a Nation, we have faced many challenges and overcome many obstacles. Throughout history I have been amazed by the many stories of courageous men and women who have exceeded expectations. I have been blessed to meet individuals who have survived being captured as a prisoner of war, a woman who survived the Holocaust to teach me lessons, and those who have survived trauma words could not describe.
A poem written by Charle Osgood called Pretty Good is something I have shared before, but something I feel we should look at again as we have a “quiet quitting” going on right now. I wonder what the individuals I have met who survived horrific traumas would think? They have since passed on to the next life journey, but it is something I wish I could ask them.
Quiet Quitting
“Quiet Quitting” became the next phase after the “Great Resignations.”
The pandemic caused a lot of people to reevaluate their lives. They looked at what they were doing with their jobs. MagnifyMoney a personal finance site reported roughly 1 in 3 workers considered leaving their jobs and 60% were rethinking their careers.
The lockdowns had many working from home and they did not want to go back to commuting, preferred the flexibility of remote work and wanted to at least consider doing a combination of both. Others were burned out or what I call, “Drainout” after trying to balance logging in long hours, child care, remote school and balancing all of life at the same time.
Quiet Quitting is doing the bare minimum at work. It’s doing only what is required of you without actually telling your boss you are leaving or quitting your job. It means you are finishing your work on time every day, you are taking lunch breaks and scheduled breaks, you turn down projects that are outside of your job, do not sign up for extra duties and stay within your area. Does this sound like it is a bad idea? Experts provide their opinions on the subject and I have mine as well.
I grew up watching my parents work very hard for everything they had, but also how generous they were to give to others who were in need. My parents faced many challenges to try to overcome in order to succeed in day to day life. All of this was etched into my heart and soul as I grew to know, working hard and to never settle was the way we did things.
As an educator, a poem found it’s way into my life that described to me the perfect lesson we all needed. We need to always remember, pretty good is not what we strive for in our work, life or country. “When doing arithmetic problems, Pretty good was regarded as fine. 5+5 needn’t always add up to be 10; A pretty good answer was 9.” If we settled for “Pretty Good” we would never be complete.
Pretty Good Poem by Charle Osgood is one of those poems I love to look back at to remind myself to never settle for “Pretty Good.” Always strive to be great at what we do. It is not how much money we make, it is not in the awards we receive or the validation we may be given. The value in what we do is what we give to it as we see, know and feel in watching, knowing and believing what will happen because of the actions we took.
“There once was a pretty good nation
Pretty proud of the greatness it had,
Which learned much too late,
If you want to be great,
Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.”
