It's Business

One of my favorite movies is “You’ve Got Mail”. The struggle between the Shop Around the Corner bookstore owner played by Meg Ryan and the megastore owner played by Tom Hanks. In one of my favorite bits of dialogue Hanks says to Ryan "it's not personal, it's business." And she responds with "What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All it means is it's not personal to you, but it's personal to me, it's personal to a lot of people…whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.”

Today I was told that business is business and I shouldn’t take it personally. Much like Meg Ryan’s character, I’m not sure I know how to separate business from personal. How can you put your heart into something and not allow it to be personal? How do you avoid having multiple personalities? I’m not talking of the psychological disorder, but rather more seriously of becoming a self that you are at work and a completely different person that you are with friends and in the rest of your life. Break it out further and you’re a different person at work, than you are with a certain set of friends, than you are with the people you hang out with at church, than you are with your family. You see where I’m going?

I realize I won’t agree with every business decision that is made. I realize in a lot of ways that I need to control emotions and say oh- not completely breakdown and cry meetings (I HATE THAT!!!) but I just can’t imagine how to even go about living a life that isn’t personal. I spend ¾ of my life at work. If I follow this advice, will that mean that only ¼ of my life is personal?

Can we be too personal? Or are we merely saying it’s business, not emotion.

In the meantime, I just look like an over-emotional person on the edge…what else is new?