Month: Aug 2018

Are all our efforts worth? Yes

In a life full of personal and professional commitments like my life and that of millions of people in the world, it often happen to feel lost in the apparent disorientation of a negative answer to the question in the subject.

Yet everything we do brings consequences in the people around us. Consequences positive or negative, but anyway we leave a mark even if we do not think about it. Often we do not understand that that extra word or that smile left on the face at that moment has brought positive consequences to the people who we were close that day.

Of course we can affect people’s lives also in the negative but, apart from rare cases where we really have responsibilities, I believe that anything negative can be compensated when we leave a positive mark such as mentioned above.

When we find ourselves overloaded with responsibilities, deadlines and commitments it seems that everything around us is negative but it is enough just to pass the moment of difficulty and then things improve. As in a scale, the plate sometimes hangs from one side sometimes from the other but you can easily find a way to balance it.

In my life I experience this condition of despair sometimes but I realize that I have to just look a bit further to find all the elements that can show me that there are so many good gifts around me.

The family, understood as those ties carried forward in good and evil by a life and that anyway represent the testimony that we can go on and overcome every negative moment.

The world around us, understood as the nature and the people we can observe everywhere we turn and we should always thank Life every day for. We take for granted the act of having all this around us every day just because we have not experienced losing ourselves in the desert or at sea and risking not to see it again.

The positive gestures of people towards us. Maybe we think that they are due but we should appreciate them more without considering them due. It would be like making a positive recharge!

The health. Sometimes taken from the frenzy of life we forget how incredibly important a gift is the health that is given to us every day. Around us people get sick, even our dearest loved ones, and we can not but take advantage of what we have more than them, trying to balance the moments of despair thinking that things could also go (much) worse should we been ill.

In general, from my experience of the last 5 years I must say that I thank Life for what it has brought me, either positive and (perceived) negative experiences, ,as they have shaped my character making it probably more aware, open to new and able to not give up in front of negative moments.

In the future I will talk about my experience with religion and how this also contributes to the flow of thoughts referred to in these reflections of mine.

In conclusion, therefore, in answer to the question of the title, Yes, I really believe that Life, with all the difficulties and efforts that we must profuse every day, it is worthwhile to always be lived enjoying every moment.

Paolo

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London City view from northern suburbs

An helping hand in the storm

In these notes I want to talk about the positive experiences that have happened to me in the last few years when someone has believed in me even in the most difficult times.

When you are over 40 and you have a career made up of routine work you naturally tend to consider the stability of work and the financial security that it entails, without thinking that this could stop at any moment. You think that by now the risk phase has passed and you can maintain such a stability for a long time, probably up to retirement age.

It is common in human nature to forget that everything is temporary, from health to financial resources, to the success achieved. Everything can really collapse quickly, just as an earthquake destroys within a few seconds everything that has been built sometimes in hundreds of years.

But what has to remain also in the hardest times are the values ​​with which one has lived and the personal relationships that have been built over time. If everything collapses around us, we remain here, with our unique values ​​and with what we have “sown” over time, and that sooner or later will be returned to us in the form of appreciation and support and sometimes, even unthinkably, new ways will open up because of that.

I am not referring only to the principle of reciprocity for which we tend to give back to someone what we have received, but in general to the fact that systematically practicing the habit of helping creates the conditions for which we will be returned sooner or later what we gave.

In general, everyone would do better to have a Plan B that contemplates the actions to be taken if things were to stop abruptly. It is not just a matter of stipulating a life insurance policy but of already contemplating the possibility that one finds oneself suddenly on the ground, mentally preparing oneself.

Needless to say, I speak from experience of what happened in the last years when I unexpectedly received a concrete support from those who believed in me in the most difficult moments. I do not say that I had previously practiced widely this theory of free help but I must say that, if my career has been able to continue and start even more satisfactory, all this is due to extraordinary people who believed in the “Paolo-person” even before “Paolo-professional” and from whom I have certainly received much more than what I’ve been able to return so far.

And since then I have a sense of debt that leads me to try to support people who are in difficulty, both in the working envirnomnet and not.

The image I have is like that of the castaway to whom a helping hand is stretched to be pulled aboard the lifeboat during the storm. It is this hand that I believe everyone should continue to lean out of the lifeboat of their lives to collect the “castaways” that we meet every day. Not only professional castaways, but also those shipwrecked in their soul.

We can really have a positive influence on people’s lives without even doing anything extraordinary,  just by giving them listening, trust and hope in their moments of troubles. And it’s nothing extraordinary, but it becomes so because in the world it is very rare to find all of this.

And I am sure that life can have an even truer sense as many times as we put our lifeboat at sea to meet our shipwrecked. The mere fact of doing it will change ourselves first.

Ah, do not forget to bring the oars if the boat’s engine breaks!

Paolo

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Airport experience

Here we go, during another hectic week flying around the skies of Europe.

This time they will be 4 flights in 5 days, on my way to an average of 12 flights per month and getting close to the dramatic figure of one flight each other day in a year!

Frequent traveling in these days of low cost flights through overcrowded airports can be very hectic and it often involves queuing because of items left in bags at security checks by inexperienced passengers….(xxxxx)…Or slow walking shoppers delaying your pace on your way to the gates while they check their stores.

Shall we talk about the airport shopping, or “travel retail” as it’s technically named), today?

Sorry but it is something I’m not a big fan of while it has become a massive source of airport revenues these days, as they try maximizing the profit per passenger from the very first moment they put foot in the terminal up to when they board the plane.

It’s curious that airport shopping only is allowed for departing passengers while arrival halls hardly have any store apart from restaurants and bars. It is like airport planner think that passengers have finished the money while on board the planes!

I dislike this airport shopping because whatever merchandise I have to buy I don’t think airport is the place to shop for it as I’m supposed to be there on my way to a destination where I’m sure I’ll be able to find some stores as well (am I going to the moon?). So why spending also at the airport?

I think probably it’s the fact that airport experience it’s already part of the vacation and there are different rules of engagement: “well let’s buy it, we are on holiday!” (Yes but without the airport store you would have perfectly survived today!).

Then, shall we talk about the Duty Free Stores?In the past they were used to be in a specific location that passengers decide to access or not. Now the trend of airport planners is to only allow passengers to move from security to waiting areas after crossing huge areas of duty free activities so it’s impossible to avoid it,

And as with any duty free experience you cannot miss the sales promotes storming around passengers to ask to try perfumes or chocolate. Even at 4 in the morning!

By the way I don’t blame these sales persons as they do not definitely enjoy convincing passengers that perhaps are not even interested in buying anything. This category of poor sales people has to work in shifts early morning up to late night in remote locations far from the city centers so I’m sure their life is not so easy.

What should be the focus of airport shop should really be limited to food and essentials stuff.

But please do not try selling me a luggage at the airport: “I already have one here and if I really need a new one I will buy outside of this airport”!

Paolo

The nobility of work

Today I’d like to discuss this expression of “Nobility of the work” to describe the blessing of having a job and the resulting moral obligations arising from it.

It’s unfortunately very common to consider the job as a simple economic transaction, where one exchange salary for work. And so earning the right salary in exchange of the  skills each one believes to have, becomes the priority instead of the quality of the job itself. It’s also expected to have the right to a good job because of the academic qualifications held, as if they were enough to give all the necessary attributes for the life outside.

Then suddenly all perspectives change and it happens to wake up one day at the sound of a bell that rings the life wake-up call. From that moment we start to look inside to really see what person we have become and if we are really able to survive the jungle.

Having experienced the frustrating condition of the search for a new job without having the backs covered by an existing one, I am now able to appreciate what luck is having a job and how extraordinary it is to have a stimulating and gratifying one.

That’s why I think it’s paramount to put all the best of ourselves into the projects which we dedicate to and in the relationships we build during our working days.

To give the best of ourselves I mean to “give ourselves” to others, in the sense of our best qualities, of our time and of our “genuineness”. And if we give the best of ourselves at the same time we will get to honor the fortune of having a job, returning with our best efforts what we have been given.

I like using the resemblance to the “student debts” which are returned to the universities when they finds their first job.

I believe there must be a link of direct proportionality between the gratifying component of our work and the extent of our efforts to return what has been received.

And certainly the work will be remunerated in the right way because no employer will want to risk losing our human contribution.

I leave you with this other Latin expression: “Ad maiora!”, “to bigger things”!

Paolo

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Let we raise our look upward beyond the obstacles

“A small step for a man, one giant leap for my life”

(Actually a step in my butt…..but, let’s read)

As a Italian citizen accustomed to a theoretical greater protection of workers’ rights, I have always found shocking the reality depicted in American films when a layoff can happen at any moment.
The dreaded box to be prepared with your personal belongings to take away your presence from the workplace. As if,when you lose a job, the notebooks and the pens you take away with you can mean something tangible …

Well this is what happened to me in the summer of 2013 when at the age of 41 I lost my job at the multinational company I had worked for the last 6 years.
In the morning I entered the office full of plans for the day, for the next few months, with the idea that you will have all the time to apply to try to achieve them, and in the afternoon I left knowing that the next day I would no longer have an office and a work to worry about.

An unexpected visit to the HR office and I had surprisingly been told that day was my last day of work following a very hard decision made in consideration of the “difficult economic situations of the company” (a NASDAQ listed giant worth 60 Billions of stock capitalization .. .).
And the famous box materialised with the sad smile of circumstance of the “colleague-undertaker” who followed my steps making sure I took only those personal effects I was authorised to withdraw.

If in these circumstances that suddenly strike I would have be alone I would probably fell to the ground due to the disappointment of the fading away dreams and the precariousness that would have now become part of my daily life.
Fortunately I had a beautiful family and friends who believed in me and I happened involuntarily to have sown well in these years of honest and hard work so as to receive many signs of esteem from customers and colleagues.
And then the Faith in God that I have cultivated up to then became an uproar to cling to in the stormy sea where I found myself trying to float.

So that afternoon I left for the last time that dusty employee parking lot with a hope that how crudely life can subtract one day,  you will be returned with interest in the future.

The traumatic experience that I experienced made me understand that we have to honor this gift called Job with our best personality, abilities, dedication and professional skills.  Skills that, by the way, we perfect in the workplace, where day after day we become  increasingly aware of the professional path we want to take in the future.

And if one day we ever get deprived of a Job we will certainly be able to wait for the next opportunity with Dignity and Trust that are waiting in the future.

May the Trust be with you!

Paolo

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….looking to the future…

First blog post – RoadIsLife.blog

Genoa, August 11th, 2018 , 03:30 CET

Dear friends,

I decided to take inspiration for the title of my first Blog from a brief quote by Jack Kerouak, “the road is life“, who seemed to long for the journey as an essential part of life. “Road” understood metaphorically, as a practical reality of the journey. Air travel, in my case, but always travel.

The journey has been and is for me more a professional need that mystical as Kerouak, but I understand that its frequency is directly proportional to the knowledge of the world and of itself that you are brought to do during its development.

In just a few hours an air journey allowed me to drastically change landscapes and cultures and made me always unprepared to what I previously believed. And every new discovery made me open a little more to the next one and its loads of new Experiences and benefits.

My life in the last 5 years of travel has changed radically and I decided to describe in this Blog these changes to get some ideas of life that corroborate with my experiences of life lived after forty years the theoretical principles to which I had inspired the life of the first forty.

In these 5 years I have gone without really wanting it from a routine life based on the solid points of reference of a solid family with concrete objectives and life projects, to a life in which the only constant are the values ​​that as a father I brought inside and that have been tested by the Experiences.

I guarantee the genuineness of the contents of this space in respect of the confidentiality of those involved and I hope that the visitors with whom I will share these experiences will find a point for reflection in whatever state of their life they are.

As told by ancient Romans to say goodbye, “Ave atque Vale”.

Paolo