Real Life Tao - Long Time, Gone

Real Life Tao - Long Time, Gone
Trey Smith

Several years back when I still resided in the south, my beloved Arkansas Razorbacks fired head football coach Lou Holtz. His last season at the helm (1983) had been an off-year for the team, but his overall record for his 7 year tenure was superb. I remember thinking to my myself that big-time college athletics was turning into nothing more than yet another corporate business and I bemoaned the idea that a great coach like Holtz would be let go after one sub-par year.

Ken Hatfield was hired as Holtz's replacement. His winning percentage at the U of A was even better than his predecessor's, but after his 6th season, he too was gone. While Holtz was fired, Hatfield left of his own accord because he reportedly didn't get along with the school's athletic director.

Longevity can be beneficial to an athletic team or a business. It provides consistency and structure. People come to know what the expectations are and the head honcho's style of leadership. (It should also go without saying that I hate to see popular coaches leave because, as an autistic individual, I LOVE sameness!)

But over the past 10 days or so, we have been afforded the opportunity to see a downside of longevity. In terms of the sexual abuse scandal engulfing Penn State University, it appears that the long-serving head coach (fired), athletic director (stepped down) and university president (fired) instilled a culture of "look the other way." It is because each had been at the school for many years that, when the scandal first broke, they believed they were untouchable!

In fact, head football coach Joe Paterno had been there for so long -- 60+ years -- that many have suggested that he was the most powerful man on campus. Nothing was done or not done unless JoePa gave the go ahead.

All this goes to show is one of the quintessential lessons of Taoist philosophy. Few things -- maybe nothing -- in this life can be viewed from one static perspective. There are times when an attribute can be looked upon favorably and yet there often are just as many times that the same attribute can be looked upon less favorably. It is not uncommon at all for the same attribute to be viewed different ways by different people simultaneously!

In other words, everything is conditional and the reason WHY everything is conditional is that life is ever changing. Tweak a variable here or a circumstance there and our perspective can change by as much as 180 degrees.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.