Are your values real, or are your values based on circumstances and the response you get?
This is what I mean: Years ago, when I was in New York City, I was walking through the lobby of a high-rise. As I approached the door to leave, I could tell there was someone close behind me, even though I didn’t see them. I grabbed the handle to the door and stepped back to open it for whoever was there. The woman who had been walking behind me stopped in her tracks, looked at the open door, looked at me, then snapped in her finest NY snarl: “I am perfectly capable of opening my own %*&*$* door!”
So let me pause for a moment and ask: What would you have done?
I mean, if you treat someone based on an idea you value (kindness, respect, etc) and they treat you with the opposite, i.e. disrespect, or rudeness, what would you do? I’ll be honest, it’s ticked me off and rubbed me the wrong way. There was no intended insult on my part; I had opened the door because my mom taught me kindness and the value of the “golden rule.” I wasn’t making a statement about her womanhood when I opened the door–heck, I hadn’t even known she was a ‘she’ until the door was open and I stepped back! So, I snapped right back at her, with a curt and superior “Fine!” and walked through the door closing it hard behind me.
It dawned on me later that this was a symptom of CVS–Conditional Values Syndrome. We all have an idea of who we are and what we value. But those values, all to often, only go so far. They only last until people respond in a way we don’t expect–then the values change. If my values had been real and deeply ingrained, that woman’s reaction would not have effected me. My opening the door would have nothing to do with whether she receives that kindness in the spirit it was intended, and everything to do with me simply acting on that kindness. My act may not have had the impact on her I would have liked, but that doesn’t mean her response need have an impact on me that I don’t want. We too often tie together our actions with one’s reactions when, in fact, there are completely separate. Our values are ours, their reaction is theirs.
Eastern mystics will say a rose smells as sweet to whomever smells it. It can no sooner withhold its fragrance from someone who is cruel to it than a tree can withhold it’s shade to one that means it harm. The tree, therefore, will shade even the man who’s chopping it down, and if its sap has a pleasant aroma it will even leave its scent upon the axe. As the rose with its fragrance or the tree with its shade, our values either are or aren’t. Either you are a person who loves, who is compassionate, caring–fill in your own value here–or you are not. When you have conditional values, you are not. That’s CVS. Sadly, I all too often find many of my values are conditional, circumstantial, and more dependent on what I receive then grounded in the strength of who I am. My goal is to be like the tree and the rose and to live by my values regardless of what I receive.
Does your leadership suffer from CVS?
