Several years ago I watched the movie Cosi Come Sei. To be honest, I don’t recall the story of the movie at all, I watched the movie because the main actor Marcello Mastrioanni reminded me of my father. But I do remember one thing about the movie, this is when Mastrioanni says “life is boomerang.” He said this in Italian, of course, but as I was reading the subtitles I felt there was a deep lesson crossing my path. I became aware that to a large extent life is a boomerang in the sense that what we project into life tends to come back to us.
Here is an example. Recently I missed a flight connection for the last flight of the day. I was standing at the service counter, and next to me was another passenger who had missed the same flight and who talked to another customer agent. I explained to the agent that I had missed my connection and asked “can you help me?” The agent loved to help, rebooked me on a flight that left early the next day. My neighbor was angry and he complained to his agent that he should have been allowed to board the plane while it was still on the apron near the gate. He spent so much time arguing with the agent that by the time the agent tried to rebook him the early flight the next day was full, and he had to take a late flight instead.
In this example, there are two people in the same situation where different attitudes led to different outcomes. Our words and actions matter. If we spend the day complaining to others, most people don’t like to spend time with us, and those that do likely are complainers too, with the result that we enter an echo-chamber of complaints. Whereas if we are upbeat, optimistic, and helpful, people like to spend time with us, and we attract people who act positively too. Our words and actions matter! In fact, our thoughts matter too because our words and actions are ultimately shaped by our thoughts. Hence, even our thoughts tend to reflect back to us. Life is a boomerang. I say this with some reservation because we don’t always get what we want in life; there are circumstances beyond our control and bad things happen to good people. But all things being equal, our attitude tends to be reflected back to us.
I encourage you to experiment with the concept that life is a boomerang. Watch what happens when you take on a positive or negative mindset. How do others respond? Are you aware what your dominant mindset is? Are you willing and able to change your mindset? If you have a hard time turning a negative mindset around, then I can help by guiding you through this process. What is true for the individual holds for organizations too, a toxic work culture tends to generate more toxicity, whereas a collaborative work culture breeds collaboration. Contact me if you want help changing the work culture. It is not rocket-science: life is a boomerang at individual and collective levels.