Bust

It starts with futile attempts to replace a cell phone that went for a swim in a vat of gravy at a certain fast food restaurant which shall remain nameless. “File not found” is the message I receive upon clicking on links to the materials I’ve been anxiously awaiting to incorporate into a big presentation.  The dog has eaten my homework, or at least this is how I sound to myself as I answer a colleague’s request for updates on multiple initiatives we’ve made little-to-no progress on. As I crawl over the finish line at five o’clock a candidate I am trying to recruit to my team has mercy on me saying, “You haven’t sold me on it, but I’ll consider it anyway”. 

The universe is conspiring against me today and it’s time to cut my losses. Everything I try to do is met with an extra level of resistance.  Even the manager’s manager (yes I’m that persistent) at the AT&T store can’t find a way to take the $700 I’m ready to fork over for a new phone because “the system” won’t allow it.  I fail to explain to my colleague that we’ve been in triage mode for the last three months on this assignment and while her strategic priorities were assigned to others, they weren’t deemed critical to our survival, and therefore didn’t get enough of my attention.  I let my emotions get the best of me with these failures, and it impacts my day.  I can’t muster the excitement to entice a candidate to take on a new assignment. I can’t find the energy to search other avenues for my presentation materials.

There is a part of me that says these are signs to step away and do something else. Maybe I’ve done all I can today?  I’ll come back tomorrow when things feel easier to tackle.  I’ll be successful then. But, wait a minute, what if I’m not successful tomorrow? 

Few of us expect to fail when we set out to do something.  I know I don’t.  Yet the reality is things can and do go wrong.  Regularly, in fact, unless you’re somehow more than a mere mortal. What if we walked into new situations expecting that we will fail a few times before we figure out how to get it right?   If we can get better at expecting failure as a precursor to success, I’m wondering if that would leave us with more emotional energy to invest into picking ourselves up and trying again.

Getting into an argument with the AT&T representative doesn’t make me feel any better, it’s not who I want to be, and it doesn’t get me a phone any faster.  However, giving some feedback about my experience and suggestions to empower his team on the sales floor means maybe something will change for the next customer. I can beat myself up for not being Wonder Woman, able to single-handedly stop the blood flowing from every orifice of my current assignment, or I can look at the decisions I’ve made around delegation and why the expected results weren’t delivered.

At the end of the day we all want to feel good about what we do.  We’re programed to believe that good feelings only come with success; that failure must equate to bad feelings.  I’d like to change that dynamic.  Not because I’ll settle for failure, but because I can learn from failure. Failure alerts us to what’s broken and creates an obligation to make change.  I can’t think of a faster way to success.    

Divisive

I’ve never been one to pay much attention to politics, let alone political rhetoric.  I don’t seek out information from this sector of news. When it’s pushed in my face every four years, I assume if I can just ride out the campaigns and election season, I can then settle back into the bliss of ignorance, going about my daily life relatively unaffected by the decisions our elected and appointed officials are entrusted to make. I’m not proud of it, but I’ll own it.

It feels like the campaign is still raging on; there is no place to hide, no peace to be found. I ask a seasoned follower of politicos if it’s always been like this, if the parties have always been diametrically opposed.  Have I just been under the covers my whole adult life, immunized by my own privileged self-interests to be unaware of the extent of the divide across our country?  What’s different now? 

From where I sit, the difference is how we talk to each other.  It’s how the White House speaks to the citizens it serves and our fellow human beings around the globe. It’s how we as citizens, in the various roles we play in society whether we’re journalists, legislators, comedians or laypeople, speak to the White House, and to each other.  It’s sobering to watch what we know about psychology play out as one side’s disrespectful comments cause the other to sink equally low and respond in kind.  It’s starting to feel wrong to laugh at Saturday Night Live. And it hits home as families struggle to retain harmony. Our dignity and respect for each other as human beings is nowhere to be found. Our mothers would be ashamed.

I’m spending a lot of time these days wondering how we restore common courtesy. Decorum is an old-fashioned word, one invoking pictures of southern belles fanning themselves calmly while sweating bullets on a hot summer day, but showing some decorum is essential if we’re going to tamp down the flames of the inferno raging in the hearts and minds of our population.

The easy answer is that the tone is set at the top.  It’s a fairly well-known leadership lesson that the CEO, the team leader, the teacher, the parent sets the tone for how we’ll treat each other as we go about getting done whatever it is that we do.  When a respectful and kind tone is absent from the top, it takes some very strong and courageous individuals in the ranks to uphold basic values of decency and humanity.

 

As I watch panelists and moderators struggle unsuccessfully for calm and composure while opining on the state of the union, I’m tempted to turn off the TV and walk away.  It’s hard to be in the discomfort of two sides arguing vehemently and often vindictively for their positions.  But it’s important we sit in this awkward space.  It’s important we challenge each other in these challenging times.

So I’m forcing myself to keep the television on, to listen to the painful dialogue.  I’m rooting for those who can maintain decorum and still get their points across effectively, regardless of whether I agree with them or not. I rally around those with the courage to answer, rather than evade, the hard questions. I cheer for those who can give the other side credit when it is due.  These are the true leaders, the voices of reason, and I have to believe they will prevail. 

Interstice

My book club takes a detour in January; we decide to devote our first meeting of the year to creating vision books and boards to help us get clear on what we want to achieve, where we want to take our lives over the course of the next 365 days.  It’s an art project, so of course I’m in.  I spend a day in preparation, corralling my pens, papers, markers, stickers, glitter, scissors and glue; loading them into my beloved Fat Max, so I can wheel them down the street to our meeting place and share with my friends.  I also use this day to develop my vision for myself so I’m ready to go to work with the girls.  I think I want to center on finding balance, and as I consider how I might do this, the theme that emerges for me is the space between. 

The space between is ubiquitous.  The Dave Matthews Band sings about it. We all recognize it as fraught with anxiety and pain, the time we want to wish away.  It’s the fear in the pit of our stomachs when we’re suddenly kicked off our beaten paths and forced onto roads we’ve never traveled. It’s characterized by that unsettled feeling that consumes us when the next step is identified but we can’t take it immediately, or taking it could mean a bad outcome. Maybe it starts as stalling to avoid at all costs what we’re afraid of and ends with just wanting whatever it is to be over with so our fear will subside. Any way you look at it, the space between doesn’t feel good. 

For me, I realize the space between grabs a hold of every ounce of my energy and uses it for awfulizing, a term I recently heard on NPR that means imagining terrible outcomes.  The space between holds me hostage, strangles me in fear and robs me of time I could be using to embrace joy.  Whether worried about delivering a presentation to a client or having a hard conversation with an employee, I often don’t realize until after the deed is done that I have held my breath, trapped in the space between, unable to allow myself to smile, feel carefree or enjoy the good life has to offer.  This, I decide, needs to change. 

  

We think practice can help us overcome the discomfort.  This mindset may be where the mantra “Do one thing a day that scares you” comes from.  We believe we can train ourselves to let go of the anxiety if we just put ourselves in vulnerable situations regularly.  But in reality, as Brene Brown proves through the research in her book “Daring Greatly”, the discomfort never truly goes away.  We are far better served accepting this vulnerability as normal and getting ourselves used to dealing with the uncomfortable.

 

So I try this.  I tell myself the space between isn’t supposed to feel good.  And it is amazingly liberating. I’m not sure exactly why, but maybe it’s because this new perspective releases me to give myself permission to be afraid and uncertain. When I accept my vulnerability and express rather than suppress it, room is created to let some joy in.

I make it my goal this year to pay attention to how I’m using the time I spend in the space between.  In this space I tend to be unavailable to the people who matter to me; I don’t make time to take care of myself.  I lose faith and can’t trust the mess that is life.  My vision book reminds me to recover the space in between and repurpose the energy I expend there for activities that nourish me:  to eat regularly, vacation liberally, create earnestly and practice gratitude.  I’m the girl holding an umbrella on the tight rope, not only to find better balance, but to learn to let go and celebrate life.