Think

Amazing what a fortune cookie can unfold. I had lunch with the other two female associates in my office yesterday at this great Thai place downtown. We exchanged stories, gossip, and they gave me some advice about surviving not only in our male-dominated profession, but our male-dominated office. As we walked out, I stopped and grabbed a fortune cookie, not because I particularly care for them, I think its more tradition or habit. I mean how else does a meal end at any Asian food place in the US right?

So, today I got in my purse to get a stick of gum, and bam there is my fortune cookie! I opened up that baby and cracked it open and there lie my fortune: "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible." Now, I was sadly disappointed as this is not exactly a fortune, but hey whose to tell Voltaire that? Anyway, it got me thinking about the different ways this phrase can be interpreted and applied in life.

1. In the midst of a fight, war, argument, etc... no one person thinks its his fault. I mean not one person can literally start a war, just the same same one single snowflake cannot start an avalanche. It's the collective. In law its the pointing fingers approach. No one single person caused the corporate breakdown, it was not the action of one person who caused the faulty part to be manufactured, nor did one party to a divorce do one single act to cause the breakup of a marriage. But that is the nature of the law, and more precisely the practice of it.

Lawyers try to figure who did it, place blame and liability. We shoot back and forth discovery, and quibble over deadlines. It's this mob mentality, this collective thinking that turns small problems into avalanches. In the end though no one really can place the blame or the start of a lawsuit  for that matter on that single snowflake.

2. Be the change you want to see in the world. When I first read my "fortune" I thought differently than how most people interpret this adage. To me it was more about the snowflake not feeling like it could cause the avalanche on its own. And perhaps literally it can't, but it goes without saying, it just takes one.

It's true no one person may feel the caused a great movement or trend on his own, but the movement had to begin somewhere. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not wake up one morning and say I think I'll have a dream today, nor one protestor standing alone begin a movement to end the war in the 60's or to Occupy Wall St. (how's that going BTW?).

My point is not one person is responsible for the great change we see everyday, but one person can be the step that puts the gears into motion to cause the proverbial avalanche.

So, however you chose to interpret my little fortune, the lesson is simple: every ill work spoken, or mean stare can begin an avalanche of hate or a smile and a kind word can bring about an avalanche of change. Each day you get to chose which snowflake you'll  be. And remember each day is a new snow storm. ~The Illegal Blonde