The Four Hundred

As I write this month's column, I find it difficult to discuss the trivialities of my IT existence. I don't care if you decide to learn ILE or object-oriented design, or if you'd rather go back to RPG II on the IBM System/36. It doesn't matter to me if you follow a proper software development life cycle or slam applications into production right after you've compiled them. Your project plans, budgets, and status meetings--none of that concerns me today.

That's because today is September 11, and like many of you, I am reflecting on the tragic events that took place one year ago. My lot in life seems insignificant on this day. What I do for a living means absolutely nothing compared with the big picture. Sure, I support my family, pay for piano and ballet lessons for my daughters, and live a very comfortable life. But underneath it all, when I lay awake at night, I often ponder trading in my IT career for a new, more meaningful career.

Maybe some of you have the same thoughts. A few of you may have even acted on those thoughts. My guess, however, is that most of us have gone back to doing what we are comfortable doing, letting time erase the memories and heal the wounds of that dreadful September morning. It may sound as if I'm condemning the latter choice. That is not the case. We needed to go back to our lives for many reasons. For some, it was a matter of financial responsibility. We have to support our families and ourselves. For others, returning to some form of normalcy was part of the healing process. And for many others, a passion for one's profession allowed for an easy transition back to a normal life. No, I don't necessarily have a problem with returning to normalcy as much as I have problem with our definition of normalcy.

The problem is that, by the time you read this column, it won't be September 11 anymore. It will be on or around September 16. You will have had about five days, including a weekend, to get back to your daily routine. It probably wasn't that difficult to do. In fact, by the afternoon of the September 11, most of you were probably back into the swing of things. Some call this resiliency. And those same people claim that it was necessary to show the rest of the world, especially the terrorists, that Americans have resolve, that we can take the body blows and keep on fighting. I have heard that rhetoric from our leaders many times, and to some extent it may be true.

I don't have a problem with bouncing back. I teach my daughters, as well as the kids that I coach, that if you fall off the horse, or are pushed off, as is the more appropriate analogy, you get right back on and ride again. This type of attitude is good for our makeup and helps to build character, or to display the character we already have inside. However, I also believe that there is a fine line between resiliency and self-importance, and from my point of view, self-importance, not resiliency, is the definition of our normalcy.

I think we should have learned a valuable lesson from what happened last September. I think we all should have taken a good look in the mirror to find out what's important to us and to those around us--family, friends, neighbors, or work associates. What we should have experienced or created in the aftermath of the tragedy was a better normalcy. A normalcy filled with respect for each other, not just during our workday, but at home, at school, on the road, everywhere. We should not forget what happened. It's OK to have a tainted view of the world, because we helped taint it with our misguided perception of what's important. Resiliency alone would have been awesome. The ability to get back on the horse and carry out our duties and take care of our loved ones would have been great. To extend that and reach out to others would have been even better. But most of us, including me, didn't do that. We crossed over into self-importance. We forgot. We went back to working too many hours, stressing out over our projects, and treating people like dirt. We exhibited road rage on the way home before taking out our daily frustrations on our families. In short, we attained normalcy.

The one-year anniversary was a wake-up call for me. That's why I am writing to you in this manner. Five days from now, when you read it, who knows, but I am going to try to change my normalcy and in the process change the normalcy of those around me. Maybe that's my lot in life. I already feel better about this part of my profession because I am able to communicate with you via the written word and read as you communicate back. That's a good thing. But we don't have to make drastic changes in our lives to increase our significance. We simply need to be the same people we were the few days after September 11, 2001: a little more caring, a little more understanding, and much less self-involved. We don't need to join the Marines and go to Afghanistan to make a difference. For those who did, great. For those who changed professions to do more good, donated blood and money, or volunteered more of their time, I applaud and thank you. For those of us who went back to our normal lives, we actually have a chance to make a significantly positive, albeit slower, impact by just emulating how we were the few days after the tragedy.

I know this from personal experience. Last year I helped my wife through a personal crisis, and she often looks back at that time, as bad as it was, as a shining point in our relationship. That's not because we have a bad relationship now; rather, it is because I slowed down a little and was there for her, mentally and physically, all the time. And there were no consequences. My job didn't suffer, I didn't write less, nor did I get out of shape. What I did was focus my attention on her and listen a lot. As time went on, and it separated us from the incident, I went back to my normalcy, which focused my attention away from the things that really matter and toward those things that shouldn't matter as much.

By the time you read this, I'll once again care about your converting to ILE and learning object-oriented design. I'll attend status meetings, follow project plans, and even try to live within previously set budgets, but I'll do so with a new normalcy, one that includes resiliency and attempts to limit self-importance. I'll do the best that I can at my profession, but I won't lose sight of those things that are really important to me. It's nice to know that we can come together during a time of crisis, but it would be even nicer if we didn't need the crisis to show what we're really made of.