By Cardinal Stephen Chow, S.J.
Alan just started his new job in a very traditional century-old shop. Making money was not its priority. The working style was too old-fashioned, and the people there were too comfortable with the status quo. The boss knew that it was not a good idea to go on with the old way, so he invited Alan to help and told him to rest assured that he was free to make changes.
Alan was determined to make reforms, but he could see that the century-old shop was true to its name, with his colleagues all being “old masters”. When he gave them a job, they would either say it was not feasible, that he did not understand the operation of the business, or that they were busy and needed more time to follow up the work. When they were asked what they were busy with, they could not give him a reason. In short, Alan was very upset from the first day of work, and he was still angry at home after work! Gradually, he found that his colleagues started to criticise him even before he started to criticise them!
He thought, “What’s wrong with you? How come you lazy fellows are the first to complain!” So he was very unhappy. He felt that people were biased against him and he was really angry! So, he was just so overwhelmed by all these negative feelings, and he was also disturbed by all these criticisms of him!
Finally, he learnt that these colleagues who criticised him were actually afraid of him because what he did in the company had affected their interests. The former pattern of routine work schedules and secure wages was broken by him, and the original practice of giving reports every three months was changed by his request of reporting to him every week, so the staff had to really go out to do the work! In order to stop him from affecting their interests, they resorted to attacking him to affect his mood and undermine his confidence. Alan was even more furious when he learnt about it, and more disturbed by his colleagues’ lack of understanding of his painstaking efforts!
In one of his prayers, Alan felt God saying to him, “You have always ignored me haven’t you? This is also hurtful to me. I have used all sorts of ways to give you hints for your own good, but you still ignore me. I am still here waiting for you, and I still love you.”
After the prayer, Alan seemed to come out of the darkness, and he thought: “If I am doing this to God, and God is still faithful to me, then can I also try to change myself?” As a matter of fact, his colleagues had been working in a comfortable style for several decades, and he had not prepared them for the radical changes he had made upon his arrival, so it was no wonder that they were resistant to the changes. Therefore, Alan started to ease his demands on his colleagues and explained the company’s situation to them, so that they would understand the urgency of the changes and adapt to them slowly. After all, having walked in the dark for so long, it took time to adapt to the light.
