Beech Tree News Network

COMPARTMENTALIZE- The word I used as a header for this particular column is thrown around a lot in some circles of our society today. For those readers whom may not be all that familiar with it or who don't know how it operates in everyday life, I'll start with a typical example and then a short definition. First the example- “it's nothing personal, it's just business!” Now the definition; to compartmentalize means that -you are able to divide things into different sections or “compartments” and do not have them overlap or integrate, one with another.

When a person is said to be good at compartmentalization it means that they have no trouble separating certain sections of their lives from the overall picture. For instance in the example I gave about business being separated from any personal concerns; that is a rationale which easily detaches the two as though there is no connection between them, what-so-ever!

If you know me, even a little bit, you have probably guessed by now that I think, this kind of thinking is, in the vast majority of cases, a bunch of pure malarkey! If you have ever used a rationale such as the one I quoted, then you are flat out fooling yourself, because it is unquestionably, blatantly and demonstrably, false. By design, all of life is integrated and overlapping; simple logic and even a half-way observant personality, will bring you to that inescapable conclusion.

It might make you feel a little better about yourself to rationalize that work and business are purely about profit margins, thus giving greed free reign, with no concern for morality, ethics or compassion in that environment, but the truth is, that is all you are doing, putting blinders on, under the guise of compartmentalization, so you can feel better about employing ruthlessness somewhere in your life.

Now, I am not devoid of reason, I know that without profit a business does not stay in operation for long. I am just stating that maximizing profits, at the expense of hurting others, is never under any circumstances justifiable, unless you tend to use such tactics as compartmentalization, to delude yourself. Such practices as looking the other way when people are not even earning a fair living wage, or letting the work of others go by uncompensated in any way, is wrong, no matter how you slice it! Sending jobs elsewhere, so you can get by with such practices, in the name of maximizing profits, is a deplorable way of going about business. Letting workers go, whom have earned higher salaries or benefits by remaining loyal for years, is despicable; or having a revolving door of “temporary” employees, for what are essentially permanent positions.

You see, work was never meant to be a totally self sufficient entity, surviving on its own, it was designed from the beginning to also incorporate the human heart and soul. It was meant as an outlet for creativity and to feel productive , it was created as part of a package deal, a “good” thing, from the beginning and when you depersonalize it, you are going against design.

It was a little easier when we all were an agrarian society, completely immersed and dependent upon agriculture. We could see, much more easily, how everything we did overlapped with every other part of our lives. Our work, our families and our communities, were much more identifiably intertwined. With the advent of the industrial revolution, life for most of us has become much more compartmentalized. We leave home for work, we import goods from people we will never meet and big portions of our lives are seen as separate from what we do the rest of the time.

Education became compartmentalized in specialized factories, still called by the name of “school” but dissecting it into bite-size portions unrelated from the rest of life, even “subjects” were broken down and taught in categories, without integrating as a whole and for the most part, children were subdivided into certain specific age groups and “grades!” I would do away with much of the compartmentalization that goes on in schools, if I had my way, but it has become so ingrained that most of us do not even give it a thought anymore.

We can not claim to be compassionate, caring people on certain days of the week, which we dedicate to spiritual contemplation and then ignore the poor, sick, and disenfranchised every other day. Life is a integrated proposition, either your heart is involved for the whole process or its not involved at all! You are a parent, a spouse, a friend, and a person of principle either all the time, or none of the time; compartmentalization is a myth ! An integrated life, ruled by compassion and empathy, is the only one following the design of the original plan.