“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”
I’ve sat there with T. S. Eliot, becoming more and more weighed down by the unchanging sameness, choking on cold coffee. It’s a slow unraveling that you’re too tired to clean up.
People try to help with all manner of platitudes when you’re in the bleak places of life. “It’s always darkest before the dawn” or “There’s a light at the end of the tunnel” or my favorite, “It gets better.” You never doubt they mean well by saying these things but they often fail to reach you in those grey, wallowy places. They’re just words. It can feel like words are just being thrown at you because they worry if they get too close, they might get sucked in to your despair, like Artax in the Swamp of Sadness.
I’m at my worst when I don’t feel I have any agency. I’m an expressive person – I need to give back and to exercise my mind and talents. I need to improve and evolve because when I stop, I’m dead.
2013 was my year of stagnation. It was among the worst years of my adult life, not for anything catastrophic, but because it left me feeling helpless. It was also one of my best years. That doesn’t make much sense, does it? At the beginning of the year, I’d left a job where I still very much valued the mission, but that I no longer felt equipped to handle on an emotional level. It was slowly wearing me so thin I no longer recognized myself. I took what I had intended to be a short-term job that wasn’t challenging while I waited on a contract that I was promised was “just coming up in the next quarter.” Quarter after quarter went by and I felt myself becoming more and more irrelevant. I applied every single place I could think of in the field that I wanted, a dozen a week at times. I had great interviews. I wasn’t hired. It felt like no matter how hard I tried, it didn’t matter. My connections weren’t good enough. My skills weren’t quite right.
It was really hard to keep going most days. I was employed. I felt so immensely ungrateful for something that simple that many people didn’t have. I told myself I was just being greedy, wanting something better. That I should settle – make the best of where I was. It made me retreat even more. There had to be something larger going on.
Here’s what I learned:
Fight like your life depends on it. Because it does. Unhappy people are all unhappy in their own way. You just have to identify where your unhappiness is keeping you stuck. Many of us aren’t optimists by nature. Identify the source[s] of your discontent and look to fixing them. The world is never going to tell you what a special snowflake you are. Because, let’s be honest for a minute, if we’re all special little snowflakes, none of us really are. But you are unique. You are valuable. And you are important. If you cede your power to someone or something else, you’re giving up the fight. We lose every battle that we don’t step onto the field. Everyone is fighting their own private battles and we can’t expect someone else to charge in on a white steed and make it all better.
Do your own rescuing. Be your own champion. We assume that the philosophical leap of faith is more a function of faith. Positive thinking, wibbly wobbly nonsense. If we believe it, it will be true. But it’s not. The whole point of the leap of faith is the leap. Seriously, go ask Kierkegaard. It isn’t enough to think happy thoughts and be mindlessly positive. You have to act on it. You have to tell the world that you are worthwhile in order to be perceived as worthwhile. (Spoiler alert: you are.) Still hanging out in the Swamp of Sadness? Fake it until you make it. You might even find yourself believing it. That confidence is infectious, but it’s also so very powerful.
Be uncomfortable. Take risks. Calculated (but not always). Failure is always an option and that’s completely ok. We don’t learn anything when we succeed all the time. We learn when we screw up. Being uncomfortable is an asset. If we spend our whole lives being comfortable, we aren’t challenged. It’s nice to have that security blanket to fall back on, but it doesn’t actually help us if you think about it. Look at it this way, if we all kept our binkies and our wubbies and tried to go out into the real world with them, it would be pretty ridiculous. But, on a metaphorical level, that’s exactly what we’re doing when we’re trying to engage the world while refusing to let go of the concepts that keep us “comfortable.”
Be on. Onstage. On time. On point. As an introvert, that is a tough pill to swallow. I’m quiet. I watch rather than engage. Most people will tell you that’s a huge personality defect that will stunt your professional development. Most people are wrong. It’s not a defect, it’s a strength if you know how to leverage it. Introverts can be an awesome asset in professional settings. Introverts are observers. Tap into what you see and your intuition about people. Start small if that feels daunting. I had to develop what I thought of as my “cocktail hour me” – it was me, but it was me as an extrovert. Think about who you are when you’re at your best. Engaged, conversational, warm, sparkling. This is where introverts have the upper hand if we know how to leverage it. Introverts often watch and intuit. This makes us great at small talk. (We just don’t typically see the point in it.) However, this also makes us better at making more genuine small talk. Think how powerful that is for a second. If you’re not used to it, it can be really hard. Crippling, even. After you find yourself truly connecting with people, this exercise in common ground becomes a real rush. More than anyone else I’ve met, introverts absolutely slay at getting others to talk about themselves. The point in small talk isn’t to fill the air. It’s to bond with others. This makes you memorable and helps lubricate social situations. Plus, it’s just plum nice.
Which leads me to my next point.
Compassion gets your further than aggression. I made a point to talk (and listen!) to at least once complete stranger every day. It was radically uncomfortable at first, but people always surprised me. I’ve worked at a cash register. The people that actually stop to acknowledge you with a sentence or two of real conversation make the day so much more humane. Small business owners love talking about why they do what they do. It’s their passion. And they typically offer some great professional insight. Say “please” and “thank you” and be just as genuine as when you were four and thought they really were “magic words” because they still are magic. People matter. Be fully present when you’re talking to someone. I never met a person who wasn’t important. Our culture tells us that it’s the Alphas, the Type As, who get ahead. But it’s not the whole story. Betas (and everyone else) may take longer to get there, but they can succeed just as well. We don’t grab for attention or power, but we often end up with leadership roles. Why? Because we get in there, get our hands dirty, develop camaraderie, and we learn by asking and listening. We work hard to earn the respect we end up with. Compassion is everything.
Be flexible. I always thought I’d be a writer. I was going to be great. People would know my name. I wanted to contribute something unique. Then again, I also wanted to be a ballerina and cried for days when I learned I was never going to grow a tail. Dreams change and paths shift. We don’t land that dream job. Our car gets a flat tire. A contract falls through. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, success doesn’t happen. Life doesn’t always give us what we want, or even (thankfully) what we deserve. However, when we pay attention, we nearly always get where we need to be. I realized that at my worst, most defeated moments, if I stepped back and asked, “What am I supposed to learn from this?” I nearly always had an answer that paid out more than what I was hoping for in the first place. I’m still contributing something unique it’s just a step in a different direction. And I’m actually happier for it.
Be weird. No one else can be you. Whatever “you” you decide to be, be that. With your whole heart and whole mind. Be an authentic, complicated, faceted, version of yourself rather than a crowdsourced, watered down, middle of the road version of what you’re told “markets best.” Acknowledge when you need to ask for help. Be aware of what you’re putting out and pay attention to what’s coming back in. Life tends to repay in kind. The best part is, since you’re writing this novel, you can change the plot and rewrite the protagonist. Blank pages aren’t scary. They’re liberating. Think for yourself.
Which of course, includes ignoring someone else’s (admittedly well-intentioned) advice in favor of listening to your own voice.
2013, in short, sucked. But really only on a completely superficial level. In ways that count in the long run, 2013 was one of my more valuable experiences. I never did hear back on that contract that was just in the next quarter. But I got another one with a place that instantly felt like home and came with more acceptance than most flesh and blood families. Reminding myself of what I’d learned kept me from getting stuck in a mental quagmire of depression (most days), put me in a better place, and open to things I wouldn’t usually consider. I met a lot of really fascinating, motivated people that I’m happy to call friends. I pushed myself beyond what I assumed I could do and rediscovered my will to fight.
I haven’t even begun to write my story.