So I left it, nearly 40 years ago. It was one of the four or five smartest moves in my life of nearly 90 years.
I’ve loved my life even more for the last 40 years, and found it very meaningful. Initially, both of my professions in the first 22 years were also very meaningful—and even very happy and successful professions with national recognition. But eventually, both professions became toxic. Or, as my wife referred to the culture where I worked last, very “plastic.”
Let me explain.
The term, toxic, is defined as “harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way.” But that’s nothing more than a dictionary term. If you’ve talked to people who use the term in reference to a relationship or a situation, you know that the dictionary term doesn’t tell you very much. The term, like many others is ambiguous. It’s a classic case of polysemy. It has many meanings, but all the meanings are determined by the context. So what’s toxic to one person is not to another. Toxic is not merely sensitive to the context. The meaning of the word toxic depends completely on the situation for its meaning.
Of all the hundreds of people related to the last culture in which I worked, no one would ever think of that culture, except my wife and I, as toxic. In fact, when I talked to a leader from that culture, years after I left, he was very offended that I described the culture as toxic—even though I used my wife’s term—“plastic.”