Exclude

Like all of the other posts, this is for Alice, Luke, and any players to be named later –


Longtime readers have probably noticed that I like to collect inspirational quotes. I like them because they are concise and they cut to the heart of a matter. They help me regulate my daily behavior by serving as my rules for the road. As situations arise the pithy statements come to mind, and I know what I should do, and must do, rather than what I might be inclined to do. The Serenity Prayer, the Boy Scout Law, the lyrics to the Impossible Dream, and many others guide me. And so today’s posting is about yet another quote from my personal collection of favorites.

“The ugliest word in the English language is . . . exclusive.”
                                             Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

(Documentation of this quote is exceedingly thin. I’d love to have a reputable source to back it up.)

That is the essential point of a sermon I delivered to Ann and John repeatedly as they were growing up. It probably isn’t necessary to expound on that quote. If you extrapolate on that word you know what Sandburg meant and can tell where I am headed. Of course I am going to write a few hundred unnecessary words anyway.

Even in elementary school Ann and John could easily understand what it meant to be excluded. They’d experienced it firsthand. It’s unavoidable. It is a common childhood experience for all of us.

We talked about playing on the playground and how there is often a kid on the sidelines who clearly wants to be invited to play. We talked about what it feels like to be that kid, and how I still remember being that excluded kid 30+ years later. We talked about how wonderful it feels to be invited and included. We talked about being brave enough to be a leader and include the excluded at every opportunity.

I suspect everyone can remember painful experiences of exclusion in the past. Children are unintentionally gifted at hurting others through exclusion. Even preschool munchkins practice exclusion when they hoard toys. Only with age do we gain some empathy for others and realize the pain we’ve caused in our past.

In elementary school the point of my sermon was empathy with others; that many of our personal pains come from being excluded, or excluding others. In junior high the exclusion sermon detoured into the specifics of cliques, the haves and the have-nots, the in-crowd and out-crowd. In later years the sermon dealt with society’s ills being rooted in exclusion from food, housing, education, and freedom.

Well, so what? What’s the conclusion to this sermonette? Well yeah, that’s what I’ve been struggling with for over a year now. This missive has been sitting unfinished at the previous paragraph for a year now because I didn’t have any kind of conclusion to offer like I do in most of my pieces, but maybe it is this thought that just struck me:

Including others is the right thing to do and that ought to be enough motivation right there.

But, if you need a more shallow self-serving motivation –

If you include others, you will be popular.
If you exclude others, you will be unpopular.
(Take a moment to think about the truth in that statement.)
Leaders include.
Losers exclude.

I welcome your conclusions.

Tom
July 2011