[September 22, 2015] This past weekend I was giving advice to teenagers who wanted to attend West Point Military Academy and become a U.S. Army officer. All five of them are 15 years old and attend public high schools here in New York City. They surprised me because I’m rarely asked about military life any more by young people. It is important, I told them, more than anything else that being pleasant will help them achieve their future goals.
The military is a small community; those you know today you will again serve with in the future. They should remember you as someone who can be relied upon, has a good-natured personality, and can help if needed. It is only natural for us to like pleasant people and enjoy their company; likewise we are more receptive to pleasant people. A military officer relies upon others and the need to know you as a pleasant person and one who is easy to be around – especially when times are tough – is important.
“Tis easy enough to be pleasant, when life flows along like a song; but the man worthwhile is the one who will smile when everything goes dead wrong.” – Ella Wheeler Wilcox
My maternal grandmother told me that I could expect to attract more bees with honey than with vinegar. With her use of this old American English saying, she was giving me real life advice on how to use kindness to deal with people successfully. Even when people are upset or emotionally confused, they respond better to those with a pleasant disposition than with someone who is neither empathetic nor unkind.
This was my point to the five teenagers. Being able to control your emotional impulses shows a higher level of maturity. Not unlike being in great physical shape, it takes practice and experience to have a pleasing disposition as it requires a conscious decision and personal focus. It’s hard to go wrong with such advice. Yet being pleasant does not mean that a person supplicates oneself to others to seek approval … an important distinction.
I found those five young teenagers refreshing to talk to about the military in general and the values we adhere to daily. As they departed, they all wished my wife and I well. And I knew they would be successful and thought that someday I will read about them in the newspaper for something great that they had achieved.
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