Traditions and Encounters

I love history. If I were not a manager, working as a historian is something I would like to do. In fact, I still think it would be a great second career. One of my pipe dreams is to write a definitive history of the Philippines or a period that has not been studied much by historians.

I read Bentley and Ziegler's Traditions and Encounters not only because I remain obsessive compulsive about reading even my wife's books just because we already have them at home, but also because I wanted to rekindle my love for history. This textbook was not exceptional, but it still reminded me of the epic scale of human achievement and folly since written records were made. When one reads of the first encounters between conquistadors and the Aztecs, of the noble and bloody French Revolution, of the rise and fall of Napoleon, of the millions who died in the two world wars, one realizes that a client escalation or a people management issue are really insignificant in the grand scheme of human history.

A sense of perspective is the best antidote to excessive worrying about issues. That is why I love history. It fuels my ambition to be great because I want to be part of history, but it also teaches me to be humble when I realize that my life is but one link in the long chain of the human story.