Why? And an allegory of communications.

I work in Telco and ICT. If your reading this, most likely you will too. Today I have been shaken to my core. Someone I knew, someone who had a profound impact on my life, someone I respected, cared for, spoke of often, and remembered for their advice and kindness to me. Irrevocably left us. I don't write this for sympathy; that belongs with their family. I don't write this for attention; I don't need it, want it, or frankly care what you think.

I am writing this because I want to share my feelings with an industry that never really shares its feelings with anyone.

We are focused on the communications of others. Why is it then that we communicate with each other so poorly? We are focused on high achieving. So why is it that the achievements of self, family, and life in general so often escape us? Why do we replace them with tales of the numbers, the wins, and the hedonism of gratuitous professional experience?

Many of you are my friends. But we don't make time to talk.

Many of you dislike me (and I probably dislike you too). But we talk with enthusiasm every time our industry causes us to bump into each other.

We share our war stories, the results of our technological, customer, and boastworthy general conquests. But we don't share our lives.

If your struggling, tell someone you respect. If a number is beating you; personal, work, or otherwise, find someone to talk to. If work is destroying your emotional state, relationship with your loved ones, or anything else central to your well being. Reach out. Reach out to anyone; and if they don't get it, reach out to someone else, keep going until someone listens and tells you your not alone. Because your not.

This industry is the domain of the communication. The realm of the message. We make it possible for the world to share everything with each other. With that in mind, its not much to ask you to spend a bit of time communicating yourself.

I'm the worst offender, sometimes I absorb myself in my work so completely nothing else exists. The newest bar, whiskey, hotel, random thing I've discovered in a city thousands of miles from my home is all I can talk about. I bet you have shared something like that too, a recipe for a morning tea cupcake you love, an amazing lake you took a client wakeboarding, maybe even a space in the office you found the calm for the next idea.

I don't care. I mean I do. Just not about that. Tell me something personal, break the senior sales/engineer/executive exterior and talk about your feelings. Explore what makes you tick. And if what makes you tick is destroying everything you hold dear. Stop it.

Its not worth it. Go tell your wife you love her. Take you parent, child or children somewhere special, find a friend, a real one, and go to the movies. Do anything, but don't live like you have no choice. And don't do something that leaves someone like me wondering what more of your amazing advice he is never ever going to hear.

We do a special thing. Us in the world of Telco, ICT, and communications..

Don't forget it.

And don't forget yourself.