When we returned to asking ourselves what we wanted, our human needs, the complexities slipped away revealing the simple truth. We wanted to be heard, really listened to. We wanted to be seen, really cared about. In that way, we wanted to feel a valued partner in a human exchange. In terms we know in this writing, we wanted to feel a Thou to another Thou. We wanted to feel that we are an end in ourselves and not a means to someone else's end. In every exchange with another person, we can feel some level of the unconditional. With customer defined as a being with needs, service rather defined itself. Service came not in the business exchange primarily. It came in serving the human needs presented to us in our every interaction with another person.
We can reciprocate. As customers, the receivers of another's service, we can offer the same level of attention and concern. We can see those who serve us as a Thou who has an end in her/himself and treat them in that way. Customer service goes both ways. The best of customer service stands as a quiet and compelling "Yes" to our shared humanity and sense of self, and as such, operates happily outside the dominator model. That's a choice we all can make all day and every day in our private and public lives. It keeps us close to our becoming self.
We also asked where and with whom customer service begins. It begins, we decided, with the moment we wake up and choose what mood we take out of our mood closet. If we choose a bitchy or angry mood, the day and any customer service within it become settled—and not for the good. When we look in the mirror in the morning we get a good look at our first customer of the day—us. The way we address this customer in the terms we decide upon above, we realize that we can exert enormous influence on how the day goes. It's very often here where we establish our conscious freedom of response to whatever situation arises through the day. When we can begin the day with a recognition of our healthy and becoming self, the being that needs and offers the unconditional, we will choose a mood that fits our essential and positive being. We will seek our motivation from within and not approval from without. That inner approval gives us the chance to define ourselves and our responses during the day. Authenticity of self becomes the core of our choices throughout the day. When we find our authenticity, our individuating, becoming self, we find ourselves open and deeply receptive to the community we build an in which we participate all day.
When we worry about what others will think about us, rather than how we decide to think about ourselves and how we treat others, we shift to our public identity and our ego that goes with it for guidance during the day. We adopt something generally inauthentic. We perform and fail to perform, our choices come from unquestioned meaning perspectives rather than the conscious choices we can make otherwise.
In that first choice of the day, we can realize that we are the first customer we face every day in the terms of the unconditional we have discussed here. After that, we may encounter those closest to us in our home and beyond. In those customer relationships, the second of the day, we especially want to serve their needs and feel better able to do so because our knowledge of those people helps us serve them unconditionally—when we choose to do so. The workplace offers us customer relationships with our colleagues, the third customer of the day. Those relationships will work to establish the feeling of the workplace throughout the day. Finally, someone from outside enters the theatre of customer service, and when we feel in balance with the previous three, we can make choices for this fourth customer in a relaxed and even joyful way.
Our communication of these simple and also complex relationships happens largely through language.[128] What we say to others and what we say to ourselves actually matters. It is through language and action that we serve others' and our own needs for recognition and the unconditional.