Keeping your end up - the secret of staying positive

Posted by Sue Roberts on 14 November 2011 | 0 Comments

Tags: Mediation, positive, grievance, conflict,

Keeping your end up - the secret of staying positive

Did you know that the origin of the old saying "keep your end up" means to hold your end of a heavy load whilst someone else holds the other?

What a great image of partnership!  I always thought that "keeping your end up" meant something like that well-worn old saying "keep your chin up" but that always seemed a little provocative.  After all, you wouldn't stick your chin in the air in the boxing ring would you?  No, keeping your end up is all about partnership: working with someone else to make it easier.

So, rather than walking around with a manufactured smile on your face pretending that the load you're carrying is really alright and that no, you don't need any help, is not what it's all about.  In these trying times of economic difficulty when sometimes it's hard to imagine what it was like not to be worried about being made redundant every time you go to work, or to be afraid that you won't be able to make the mortgage payment this month, it's easy to kid yourself that you're coping fine alone rather than let anyone know how worried you really are.  Whilst we're on the subject of homilies, a burden shared may not actually be a burden halved, but it really does help to have someone else to carry some of it.  And that's the secret: don't try and shoulder it all alone. 

The stress of our working lives at the moment may be a hard one to deal with, but there are those who are waking up to the fact that organisations and their successes are dependent on the people who work in them. It's important to share the burden before it becomes stressful, and therefore a problem to you and the organisation you work with.

I'm convinced that's why mediation is so successful.  When people are struggling to get through the maze of interpersonal relationships both at home and at work, just having someone to talk to about it and who wants to help, really makes a difference to the way that burden is carried.  In over 90% of cases, mediation is successful, so why would you want to carry around the burden of a conflict, a grievance or even litigation when there is someone who can help you keep your end up?  Times may be hard, but that doesn't mean you have to cope alone.  If there's something you can do for yourself to make it easier, do it and go forward into 2012 without carrying the whole she-bang yourself.