Utterly frustrated, annoyed and my thumb hurting like hell after I 'hammered it' instead of the nail "What the F#$* !' came out. Try as I might - this is one of my flaws : almost never in public : but almost always at home !
My 17 year old daughter cringed - my ten year old son laughed - jumped up from where he was studying and ran straight to his mother 'carrying the tale.' Shaakya (my daughter) gave a wry smile - 'now you've had it' she mumbled under her breadth - and I knew she was right...
'I am sorry - it just came out' I blurted out before my wife (and my mother in tow) could unload their verbal barrage on me. 'I didn't mean to - I hit my thumb instead of the nail ' I explained - showing my thumb with the hope of getting some sympathy !
'Baby (yep, Ma still calls me baby !) I have always told you to watch your mouth. What on earth are you....' the rest of the trail of sentences trailed off - and I instinctively 'switched off' as I generally do when my mother takes on this type of chastising (wasn't the first : won't be the last !)...
See... I have always thought 'profanity' to be 'ok' under 'normal' circumstances. Amongst friends, in jest, to let off steam - as long as it is not DIRECTED at someone else. This 'rationalization' of it has resulted in me not taking my mothers' (and later my wife's) warnings to heart... It has always 'slipped' ever so often - and I have not ever thought twice about it...
The issue is when your son picks up on it - and uses it 'casually'... As with many things, when your son does it, it somehow seems horrible: but when YOU do it, it somehow sounds 'cool'. I have made many a mental note NOT to - but we are all creatures of habit - and bad habits (especially) are certainly harder to break... Though I have certainly become less frequent in my 'gutter filth' utterances, it still lets itself out - as it did today...
The same is unfortunately true for all matters of leadership... Ultimately, what WE do becomes the yardstick for others : and us doing it makes it 'ok' for others to do the same... People (as do our children) almost always follow what we DO rather than what we preach about... So, maybe it is time to take cold hard looks at ourselves, and see if we truly are the 'bad examples' others follow.
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