I did a Facebook Live with author and noted workplace expert Dr. Patti Fletcher, last week, and it was something else. Have a look.
I’ve done local access cable TV in the late 1980s, and early morning TV here in North Carolina. There’s no doubt broadcasting from your computer is more like local access, but, if you have the budget, you can be like Mike Rowe and do a lot with Facebook’s platform.
Before Patti and I went on air — which is not the right phrase but whatever — we talked about our family heritage. She has a fascinating history of interesting and eccentric men and women who impacted her life. I’m sure we all have compelling figures in our family, but I’m not interested in the past.
I’m like, “Yeah, I figure that my family came to America because it wasn’t so great back where they lived. If I’m looking backward, I can’t make good choices today.”
That’s when Patti told me your life is not a blank slate. You are the outcome of choices and decisions made many generations before you were born. There’s a whole group of people who came before you, and they informed the narrative of your life. These individuals may be dead in the flesh, but they’re not dead in spirit. The live within you and through you when you express a preference, make a choice, or act on your implicit biases.
Makes sense. If you’re a parent, you already know this. But I don’t have kids. All I know is generations of adults were assholes to their kids, and those kids grew up to be asshole adults who mistreated their kids. It feels like the story ends with me.
But it doesn’t end with me. There are decisions I make today can impact people who aren’t even born yet. Am I modeling the right behaviors of a healthy adult? Do I treat my siblings with compassion so they’re raising healthy children? Have I been a good role model for kindness to friends and colleagues? Am I messing up their kids and future grandchildren?
William Faulkner wrote the past isn’t dead, it’s not even the past. I never realized the weight of his words until appearing on Facebook TV with Dr. Patti Fletcher. What’s clear, now more than ever, is I have work to do in the present.
How about all that for an appearance on Facebook TV? Man, the internet is something else.