Heather Stewart Poetry

The deep down secret of it all 
Isn't excellence, education, aspiration 
 
It is a simple inclination 
A persistence 
A perseverance 
A patience for availability  
A certain approach  
That requires every mundane endeavor 
Each task 
To be treated as  
 
An occasion to rise 
 
In simple terms,  
Keep a good attitude 
And be willing to do the work 

---

I remember asking my recruiter something about how to do well when I was in the Navy. I remember being nervous about messing things up. He just smiled at me. He reminded me that I had met him at work and advised that I just keep doing what I did there.

I was pretty sure that he didn’t mean for me to be a barista, even though I knew even then the importance of coffee. I mean, it’s not like there were gonna be espresso machines and milk steamers. It still didn’t make sense out of what he did say, which must have been evident on my face. So he cleared up for me.

Just keep a good attitude and be willing to work.

It really is amazing how simple and real that was. I always told people about him saying that because most people got terrible advice from their recruiters. What I rarely mentioned was the first part, that I had met him at work and that I already had this characteristic.

I got it from my parents. I have great parents. Sure, there’s some childhood stuff but only the things that couldn’t be avoided from them just being human and living in the time and place that we did. When your mom has to flee her country to escape communism in the height of the Cold War when she’s only second grade, there’s gonna be some generational trauma. When she experienced grown men following her home or flashing her before her age was in the double digits, there’s gonna be some generational trauma. But she never let it get in her way. She’d adjust her expectations, put up some boundaries, and get on with her life. She was grateful and happy to be in a country where it wasn’t the government itself that was making her do things.

So she consistently had a good attitude about where she was in life when I was growing up. She dug in and did the hard things. She didn’t much have to compromise with my father because they collaborated. They wouldn’t have said it that way, but that’s what they did. They supported each other and worked together to come back from every pitfall that befell our family. My dad is the dad that came home and did the dishes and he didn’t complain about it.

I didn’t know to put it this way as a kid but they have always been such a team. Everything life through at them came with an adjustment to our lives but one they worked on together, with a good attitude.

I learned in my own career that it’s the attitude that is the rare part. Plenty of people know they have to work and get to it, but so many have a bad attitude about things and make working with them such a headache. They had their bad moods sometimes, but my parents always had a good attitude about getting the family through the hard times. They teased each other and made jokes and got help from other family members when necessary. They always pitched in for their families too.

It doesn’t solve things but a good attitude and a willingness to get in and do the work definitely sets us on our way to getting things solved and it helps us find people that can pitch in.