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Unintended Consequences
We all create a wake: the downstream turbulence of us. Treat unintended consequences as welcomed guests. Catalog & learn from them.
The downstream turbulence of us
We all create a wake — the downstream turbulence of us, think a boat or a duck. Many people don’t realize they leave a wake behind them. Those that do rely on family, friends, co-workers, and coaches to let them know about that wake so they can mitigate (lessen) the impact of these unintended consequences of being. In the ’90s at Value Behavioral Health in Troy, NY, Jim Bulger, my mentor and best boss ever, often spoke to me about my wake. Another great boss and mentor, Bob Doherty, at St. Peter’s Addiction Recovery Center told me, with love, that I was an acquired taste. I learned that I needed a boss with self-confidence to value me and my wake. My 9-year-old grandson, the writer, read to me from a book he wrote about wizards using wands. I asked him how using a wand affected the wizard. He said, ‘sometimes powers can come back up the wand to the user or using the wand can exhaust the wizard’ — unintended consequences. As a pathologically optimistic, apocalyptic person, I appreciate the yin and yang of unintended consequences — the gift and the danger. It’s everywhere — it’s life.
