Recently, I saw a sign hanging in an inmate’s cell that caught my attention. The sign read: “I want to be your favorite hello and your hardest goodbye.”
My initial reaction was one of admiration. I felt inspired and thought, “That’s powerful. That’s a noble objective. That’s something that we should all aspire to be.”
Being a “favorite hello” means others look forward to your arrival. Your presence is appreciated and welcomed.
Being a “hardest goodbye” means others hate to see you leave. They enjoy your company so much that your departure causes them sadness, perhaps even pain.
Who wouldn’t want to be thought of in this regard?
I decided in that instant that becoming people’s favorite hello and hardest goodbye was going to be one of my life’s new objectives.
However, the more I thought about this endeavor, the more I began to question my initial reaction to the inmate’s sign. Something about its wording wasn’t sitting right.
It’s easy to be someone’s favorite hello. If I want to be my daughters’ favorite hello, all I need to do is give them candy whenever they want. They will quickly come to looooooove seeing me!
But me always giving them something that isn’t good for them is, well, not good for them. In the long run, my actions will rob them of happiness. I will contribute to their rotting teeth, malnutrition, and unhealthy habits. They will eventually resent my arrival.
During an intervention, I once heard the parent of an addict confess that she gives her teenage son money to get high because it “makes (her) life easier.” She described how doing so keeps her son from incessantly nagging her or stealing from others.
The therapist running the intervention looked at the mother and posed a poignant question: “Over the years, has allowing your son to manipulate you like this made your life easier?”
When the mother thought about the totality of the situation, she responded with a heartfelt, “No.”
To be truly noble, the endeavor needs to be changed from being someone’s “favorite” hello to being their “happiest” hello. Favorite equates to pleasure, which is a short-term objective. Happiness is a far more impactful, eternal objective.
Being a happiest hello means your actions allow others to experience happiness.
Giving my daughters’ all the candy they want will no doubt provide them with a dose of pleasure. But tempering how much I give them, teaching them healthy habits, and restraint will ultimately provide them with happiness—even if that reality isn’t immediately realized.
Good teammates do not enable bad behaviors. They facilitate happiness. For that reason, they endeavor to be their fellow teammates’ happiest hello.
As always…Good teammates care. Good teammates share. Good teammates listen. Go be a good teammate.
