Who are you in the timeline?

I had the awesome privilege recently of connecting with some old friends at a wedding. Some I had not seen in 19 years and the last time I saw them the jeans were very baggy and being worn below the underwear…as was the fashion in 1999 when I left high school. (I apologise in advance that I dont have pictures from 1999, they were all destroyed when the clocks turned into the millennium). What fascinated me was the continuation of relationships over that 19 year period. Some people’s last memory of me was the person I was in high school, while those I saw more recently can relate to a new modern me…who wears his jeans above the underwear line. In a similar experience I was contacted by a former colleague who had what she thought was the perfect job opportunity for me. It turned out that the role she was proposing for me was a role aligned to what I had been doing 5 years earlier. But her last memory of me was the manager in the role 5 years ago. It would have been in reality, 3 steps backwards in terms of how my career had progressed, but it didn’t occur to her at all.

My question for today, therefore, is whether or not you have ever stopped to consider where you are in people’s timelines? If you are recruited by a former boss into a new team, are they recruiting you because of your potential of who you could be in the future or because of the person they remember you to be? Maybe its neither and they are actually recruiting you because of the person you are today? In relationships does it matter what the state of the relationship was in the past? So if we were best friends in high school, does it mean that we will remain best friends today? Or, is it possible to overcome previous biases and conflicts because of the shared future that is much more attractive?

Even more interesting for me was wondering whether it should be my responsibility to keep people updated on own my timeline. So, is it my responsibility to remind people of my current interests, values and activities so that this is the starting point of the interaction? Imagine a conversation that starts “Hey John, great to see you! I haven’t seen you in such a long time in which I have managed to hold down a job, get married and start a family. How are you?” . Or is it the responsibility of other parties to prompt this out of you in the following manner “Hey John, great to see you!. Last time I saw you your jeans were below your underwear. Is this still the case?”. Whichever way it goes I think my point here is that with the passage of time, we cannot assume change in people and also cannot assume stability. It is probably more important to know where someone is today according to their own timeline, than who they were in the past according to your timeline.

Now let us bring in the element of the future. Visions and expectations of the future are obviously very subjective. We cannot predict all events with certainty and cannot move to judge the trajectory or someone’s life with accuracy. Why then do we allow ourselves to pass judgement on each other based on this perception? Using a sad childhood example, many Zimbabwean children were informally classified as bright or not bright by their parents and families from an early age. If John showed signs of perceived intelligence then John would receive significant support in pursuit of academic excellence. If Peter, on the other hand had a disastrous Grade 1 term, he could have been written off as not so bright. Mediocre results would be accepted under the proviso that Peter is just not as bright as John and so we shouldnt expect much more than this. Future John was more valuable than future Peter.

I remember, one kid in school who really struggled academically. He was the subject of many jokes in bad taste and I remember the senior boys writing the work “PLANK” across his forehead in permanent marker. (Before you have a heart attack I must mention that I attended the best school Zimbabwe has to offer, but with over 600 boys in a boarding school it was not uncommon for these things to happen). Anyway, fast forward a few years after school during a mid university break I bumped into this individual at the airport. He was dressed fashionably in expensively branded clothing  and was flying overseas for a holiday. Since I was used to struggling on a student budget I was curious to find out how he was financing his lifestyle. It emerged that Mr “PLANK” had started an IT business in Harare, which had become in 3 years one of the largest IT sub contractors in the town. He was printing money. Being broke after 2 hard years of studies,I felt like a PLANK!

So where does this leave us? One of my favourite passages from the Bible is from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8…

To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.

Today maybe it is time to think about our own lives in the context of a timeline. Namely, where are we in our own timelines and where do we fit into other people’s timelines. Of course one is easier to change than the other. We must be comfortable that we are the person we think we are on our own timeline. Thankfully, you are still alive and reading this, which means you have some time left in your life. Maybe its best not to worry too much about the people who remember you in those ridiculous baggy jeans. Maybe its best to stick to our own timelines.