The Toxic Environment … or Not

I’m not sure that advice seemed to be flowing around me while I drove across the country or if it was always there and I just never listened. In this case, at a Towneplace Suites hotel breakfast area in Huntington, West Virginia, the words “toxic environment” emanated from a table behind me, and of course I listened. What else would I do? Pay attention to my teenage daughter who was glued to her phone?

It was a guy, perhaps an Uncle, talking to his nephew. That part may not be true, but two guys were talking. I heard blattle blattle blattle (I was focused on the Cheerios dispenser), and then the older man said “well, you’ve got a toxic environment, and you have to leave it.” I’m not sure the younger man’s toxic environment was West Virginia itself, and I think it probably was not, because it was extraordinarily scenic in the area. Sadly and unfortunately, 30 miles East lays Charleston, of which we could still see the effects of the massive flooding. But I think the toxic environment he was talking about was something about his work and the place he lived.

Kyle is currently attempting to create his own personal toxic environment, and that is why there are no pictures of him. But he’ll come around, hopefully soon.

Before I prattle on, it might be important to know that I think everything has some kind of toxic environment, or at least an easy potential to be. People are on the edge all the time. Anything can set one person off, creating havoc in the group or the larger environment. Even on the road trip, the kids were awesome 99 percent of the time, but I remember the one percent a lot, as the 6-year-old and 13-year-old started some kind of slap war and did the always fun and highly repetitive game of “Stop it! No. You Stop It.”

At home, we’re driven to drive for perfection, and even that’s not actually true, there is the perception that we are. At work, we are made to think there is a winner and everyone else gets steak knives. We just don’t know who the competitor is, so we naturally assume it’s the person next to you.

A while ago, someone told me about relative success (he was referring to a book from a coach and I’ve long forgotten the name)— that when it comes to moving up in the world, people don’t really compare themselves to the world, they compare themselves to the person most similar to them. Or from what I have seen, they look for the most likely to be defeated persons. They measure their personal success on whether or not a person makes more money, has a better car, gets promoted — everything for the wrong reasons. John Wooden, the famous basketball coach, had thoughts about this — he said:

“You should never try to be better than someone else. Always learn from others and never cease trying to be the best you can be. That’s under your control. If you get too engrossed and involved and concerned in regard to things over which you have no control, it will adversely affect the things over which you have control.” John Wooden

In other words, you are creating your own toxic environment.

It was a 420-mile slog through some beautiful country in West Virginia and Western Virginia. Many of the highways were under construction; some of the drivers became angry. Some had to go to the restroom and drove across three lanes of traffic to get to there fast, creating a highway toxic environment.

As we drove relentlessly from St. Louis to Huntington, West Virginia (noting the tragedy of the 1970 Marshall University football team), we stopped at a few universities just for Hannah to see and not really tour. It seems like minimal effort, but even something like that can put pressure on someone. It’s one thing to be “mindful.” But pressures on the kids not only create toxic environments for the kids, but the future, the parents, the well, everything. I think.

A car with four people on a road trip across the country is not a microcosm of the universe, earth, or even a city. It’s just four people with a similar destination in mind. Maybe if we keep thinking about the destination and why we’re going on it, we’ll avoid the toxic environments that appear to be everywhere around us.

By the way, what is Kanarodo? It’s in Kansas. It’s pretty close to Colorado. Do all bordering states have amalgamated names? Deep thoughts…

Peace.

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