Don’t Leave Rocks on the Pavement and other things I’ve learned

I retired in June of 2016.  The timing was a little ahead of my planned schedule, but that’s a story for another time.  Since then, I’ve done a bit of consulting; a lot of reading; a bit of exercising.  A bunch of travel.  Friends ask me, “So.  What are you doing with yourself?”  The implication is more along the lines of “What are you doing with yourself beyond Sudoku and the YMCA?”  What was I doing with my time?  I was writing in my head.  I was writing in my head when I walked on the local trails, when I read interesting things, when I saw or heard or experienced something that made me think.  I’ve always wanted to write.  Nothing was stopping me from writing.  I just wasn’t getting it out of my head and onto paper.  What have I wanted to write about?  To explain that, I need to tell you a little story.

It was the fall of 1997.  My expat assignment in Mexico was a “go”.  I was preparing to uproot myself and move to a country where I didn’t yet speak the language and had only visited on short vacations.  I was excited; I was scared to death; I felt like I had the world by the tail!  In September or October, I visited Mexico to begin house hunting, getting to know my local colleagues (both expat and Mexican) and start to visit local customers.  Eduardo had picked me up at the Mexico City airport and we were on the two hour (or so) drive up to San Juan del Rio, where I would be living and working. 

As we drove and talked (in English), I was reading out loud all the billboards and translating them with Eduardo’s help.  Bless that man and his patience!  I can only imagine how annoying that was for two plus hours.  There was a road sign that kept appearing, every few kilometers.  I sounded it out:  No Deje Piedros Sobre el Pavimento.  I asked Eduardo what it meant.  “Don’t leave rocks on the pavement,” he answered gently.  My reaction was instantaneous and, now I understand, cringe-worthy.  “Don’t leave rocks on the pavement?!  What a ridiculous thing to put on a sign!”  I then proceeded to make a few other inappropriate remarks about Mexicans, including why on earth would anyone leave rocks on the pavement?  Are these people idiots or just drunk all the time?

Inside, I’m sure Eduardo was seething.  These arrogant Americans!  Think they know the whole world.  “Well,” he evenly replied (in fluent English with that beautiful sing-song accent that I love so much), “as you see, this road is very hilly.  It is a highway used as a direct connection between manufacturing in Central Mexico and the US border.  In fact, it is often called the NAFTA Highway.  However, many Mexican trucks are old and break down.  We don’t have the money to buy newer trucks.  The driver will use rocks behind the wheels to keep the truck from rolling backward.  Once the truck is fixed, they will often drive off, leaving the rocks in the roadway.  If we hit one of those rocks in this car, we would be in big trouble!  So, it’s important that people are reminded not to leave those rocks on the pavement.”

I was 35 years old.  I thought I had seen a lot in my life.  I thought I was “worldly” and empathetic.  But in that moment, I realized that my world had been pretty small.  I was embarrassed and apologized to Eduardo.  And clearly that moment stuck with me.  To say that my years living in Latin America changed me would be a vast understatement.  I quickly learned that I typically made hundreds of little assumptions about the world and the people around me every day—assumptions that don’t universally hold up.  I never realized that before because I didn’t notice when an assumption proved wrong.  I just continued to plow forward, looking at life through the lens of my very limited experience.  “You don’t know what you don’t know,” they say.  Living in Mexico forcefully pulled off a lens cover and I began to look at everything in my life differently.

My years in Mexico, followed by a series of powerful “learning experiences” (read: struggles) and equally powerful mentors have formed the basis of my perspective.  I began to build a list of maxims that have guided my personal and professional lives.  “Articulate your key assumptions and test them” is one example.  Others include “What problem are you really trying to solve?” “It’s not about the decision you make, it’s what you do after you’ve made the decision” “Find something you can like and something you can learn from everyone you meet” and “If something looks simple, it means I don’t know enough about it.”  Over the years, I have shared these thoughts and many others with people that I have mentored and guided, as well as friends and, occasionally, family.  Now that I am retired, it is time to capture these ideas and share more broadly.  I have been gifted both with these life experiences and the gift of expression.  Follow along with me on this journey as I share so much of the blessings, humor and hopefully wisdom that I’ve accumulated over the years. 

I hope I can help you to learn to look at the world around you (and within you) a little differently.  We affect so much around us with our words and actions.  It’s good to be aware of the rocks we inadvertently leave on the road that may be a problem for others.  So, lesson #1:  Don’t leave rocks on the pavement.

© Sherri Bassner, 2019