Change In The Room
When you enter a room, how does it change?
Does the amount of kindness the group operates with go up?
Do you increase the intelligence of the room in a certain area?
Do you bring the knowledge of a broad education, or a certain perspective that few people have?
Do you brings skills to the group?
More pointed, do you bring down the group in some way?
These questions aren’t meant to be answered in a scientific manner. Rather, they serve as guideposts, ways of thinking about what you bring to the table when you enter a room. You can delude yourself about how great you are, but that doesn’t change the actual result of entering a room.
Each time you join a group, that group changes in some way.
It’s worth being honest with yourself. Is that change positive, or is it negative? In reality, there will be both positive and negative changes to the group when you join. People aren’t perfect, and we all have our better and worse qualities.
The question becomes: Is your presence worth the downsides?
This is a difficult assessment to make, both because the quantities are not easily measured and this assessment can be emotionally fraught. However, there is use in working through this question, because it will show you where you can improve. Once you know that, you can begin the important work of tilting the scales and making your presence better for everyone.
We rarely think about how we change the room when we enter it, but we do. We can either throw up our hands in despair and not make an effort to improve, or we can dedicate ourselves towards shifting the average of the room up (in whatever category you deem important).
“What happens when you enter a room?“ Is a question worth pondering.