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I went through my Facebook feed and cleaned out some of the pages I followed. This included cleaning out the pages of some old acquaintances I only followed to support them. One of these pages bore the title of Success Ninjas. The clever name belied a problem I've had with corporate culture and people wanting to climb the corporate ladder. They have confused the positive, pseudo-occult, pseudo-spiritual messages found in books like the Secret as real spirituality. They've also assumed to think that spiritual people are always positive, and that this is the key to success.
I am not sure where this message came from, although I place the blame on Stephen R. Covey. It's probably not that simple. However, I would be hard pressed to name one spiritual leader who said that gaining material wealth is the key to living. The most prominent leader in the West even commanded his disciple to give up almost all of their material possessions to follow them. (Lao Tzu does not say this, although he *does* call people who have too much 'shameless thieves' and says that there way isn't The Way.)
No spiritual person I've ever met is positive all the time. Most will have topics that invoke anger readily, and they are not afraid to show it if it becomes too much. Even the people who go on about how their spirituality has increased their material wealth and how being positive has helped them cannot deny one famous story in the New Testament. Jesus, the spiritual leader many of them claim to emulate, flipped over the tables of the money changers in the temple. He chased the money lenders out of the temple using whips.
Spirituality may be partly about understanding people, but it is also about trying to live a more moral life. People trying to use it as a tool for success in business seem to think that they are not being spiritual if they use harsh language or unkind words to describe a situation. Not speaking out against this kind of behavior has let corporate America become the cesspool that it is. The sociopaths at the top don't want to be criticized for their behavior, so they push this garbage onto Middle Management.
It's entirely possible because I saw part of my job as a journalist as pointing out things that were wrong. It led to a certain focus. Criticizing politicians or others for bad behavior did not make me any less spiritual. In some cases, I was just complaining. In other cases, these harsh criticisms were something leaders needed to hear. Sadly, there are a few cases where my own prejudices and beliefs at the time made me say something that I rightly should have been criticized for saying.
I felt a little guilty about unfollowing these success pages, but these are largely acquaintances from my past. My life has gone in a different direction, and I don't think their definition of success is what I want for myself.
Note: The confusion with spirituality did lead me to get an A in a human relations course I once took. It surprised me because I do not deal well with people. However, I think being spiritual is about *understanding* where different people are coming from, and politics is the art of getting along with others and manipulating them.
I am not sure where this message came from, although I place the blame on Stephen R. Covey. It's probably not that simple. However, I would be hard pressed to name one spiritual leader who said that gaining material wealth is the key to living. The most prominent leader in the West even commanded his disciple to give up almost all of their material possessions to follow them. (Lao Tzu does not say this, although he *does* call people who have too much 'shameless thieves' and says that there way isn't The Way.)
No spiritual person I've ever met is positive all the time. Most will have topics that invoke anger readily, and they are not afraid to show it if it becomes too much. Even the people who go on about how their spirituality has increased their material wealth and how being positive has helped them cannot deny one famous story in the New Testament. Jesus, the spiritual leader many of them claim to emulate, flipped over the tables of the money changers in the temple. He chased the money lenders out of the temple using whips.
Spirituality may be partly about understanding people, but it is also about trying to live a more moral life. People trying to use it as a tool for success in business seem to think that they are not being spiritual if they use harsh language or unkind words to describe a situation. Not speaking out against this kind of behavior has let corporate America become the cesspool that it is. The sociopaths at the top don't want to be criticized for their behavior, so they push this garbage onto Middle Management.
It's entirely possible because I saw part of my job as a journalist as pointing out things that were wrong. It led to a certain focus. Criticizing politicians or others for bad behavior did not make me any less spiritual. In some cases, I was just complaining. In other cases, these harsh criticisms were something leaders needed to hear. Sadly, there are a few cases where my own prejudices and beliefs at the time made me say something that I rightly should have been criticized for saying.
I felt a little guilty about unfollowing these success pages, but these are largely acquaintances from my past. My life has gone in a different direction, and I don't think their definition of success is what I want for myself.
Note: The confusion with spirituality did lead me to get an A in a human relations course I once took. It surprised me because I do not deal well with people. However, I think being spiritual is about *understanding* where different people are coming from, and politics is the art of getting along with others and manipulating them.
