Workplace Calisthenics: 9-11 tragedy taught many lessons, but not all learned

Dr. Cal LeMon's company, Executive Enrichment Inc., solves organizational problems with customized training and consulting.

As we prepare to scour our tear ducts and memories on the anniversary of our national horror, it is essential that we decide what we have learned. Learning has to be the only redeeming result of Sept. 11.

Out of the ash, unquenchable fires and flag-shrouded stretchers, we should have gleaned something. I have been keeping a list.

Lessons learned

We learned that we have the same potential as our grandparents to discriminate against anyone who physically resembles our enemy. If your skin is dark, your hair jet-black and your wardrobe includes a head wrap you have become a card-carrying member of democracy's untouchables.

Be prepared to be stared at, whispered about and pulled out of every airline boarding line.

We used to appreciate your contribution to our melting pot that was, until a pristine September morning.

We have learned that time does not heal all wounds.

It will be generations until we are able to pause on this calendar square without experiencing trauma. There are losses so grievous that their tattered edges trail through our histories, dispensing pain with regularity.

We have learned that you can excuse any inefficiency or indolence by just tacking on, |quot|because of 9-11.|quot| Sept. 11 has been blamed for plastic forks in airport restaurants, longer lines at Andy's, the pending baseball strike, Tiger Woods' poor performance in the British Open and dogs howling at midnight.

If your company cannot deliver on time or coworkers have developed an |quot|attitude,|quot| just pull out, |quot| because of 9-11.|quot|

We have learned that photo albums and memories are the real bottom line to life. When the rubble was still smoldering at the World Trade Centers, it was the pictures those lifeless images of lively, loving, laughing people borne by trembling hands or plastered on New York City utility poles, edged in duct tape that became the calling cards of the missing.

We have learned that amassing a huge 401(k) is not the American dream. What good do those numbers do any of us if we worked so hard to run our fingers over those annual reports that we never had time to touch life?

The good life is not the accumulation of wealth; the good life is sitting on your front steps with someone you love, watching it rain on a cool Saturday morning.

Heroes

We have learned that genuine heroes sometimes never are interviewed by Matt and Katie.

Their heroics are too quiet and distant for any camera to capture.

These heroes were the men and women who thumbed their noses at caution and started to climb impossible stairways to perform an impossible rescue.

And tonight, there are other heroes who are, alone, bathing small children, cleaning up mountains of toys and reaching for someone in cool sheets who will never show up.

We have learned that our most precious natural resource is time. In nanoseconds it slips past our strongest grip. Our intellect or perseverance cannot contain it. We watch it fly and wildly chase it with Franklin-Covey time planners and never-ending to-do lists.

We have learned we are boring as a species. The |quot|News Alert|quot| of CNN and |quot|Breaking News|quot| of NBC keep telling the same old story over and over again. The boredom of our banality is baffling our brains.

We nominate |quot|Sex In The City|quot| for innumerable awards and then lobby to find a cure for AIDS.

We are willing to pay muscle-bound men millions of dollars to hit a baseball over a wall and then defeat school-bond issues. We weep when we talk about how much we love our children and then kill them with second-hand smoke.

We learned that God is popular when the sky is falling. He doesn't seem to be as in vogue when the debris is cleaned up and the sun comes out again. Empty pews become our ballot boxes for national spirituality.

And, on this Sept. 11 we should have learned that our worst enemy is ourselves.