"Life daily opens her fickle hand to present you with a flower or to slap you." - C.J. Gall from The Hour and the Day
I read this quote yesterday in the essay by C.J. Gall featured in this month's edition of The Sun (subscriptions are worth every cent). She is talking about transitions, particularly the one when parent and child begin their disconnection from one another, and how in retrospect it always seems to be captured in a moment quite unexpected. I experienced one of those yesterday. But that is not the subject of this post.
If you've read any of my previous entries you'll notice that "work" is a common subject for me. I feel pretty strongly that what you "do" in the world is an expression of who you are and the farther the duties of the job from the real mission and purpose set forth by your soul, the more distress you experience while performing those duties. The workplace is also fertile with opportunities to recognize one's shadow side. You can shine there...and you can get crushed by your own darkness.
We know this about human relationships because we are lifted and crushed by them all the time. As we age, we come to expect a barrage of uncomfortable enlightenments when we enter into the entanglements of love. But, at work?
Work, to me, is my personal relationship with the outer world. It is the material aspect of my experience. All other things are internal: emotions, thoughts, passions, spiritual connections. But work is the most outward. It is what flows out of our hands and feet. It is what we throw our weight into. We dig, we hammer, we type. We DO all sorts of things.
Work is also where the creepy part of my "doing" nature bursts out - specifically debilitating perfectionism ("anything worth doing is worth OVERdoing") and stubborn unwillingness to let anything fall off the plate...ever. Generally, employers love this about me. I love this about me until I find myself buried and non-functional. And what happens when I get to THAT place? I want to run like hell. When I get to that place I can't see the forest for the items on the to-do list.
Now, the Universe, out of its infinite wisdom and sometimes mean sense of humor, does so love to send us remedial lessons when we just don't seem to be getting it. Trust me on this...I am not getting it. I am obsessive about earning the "highest marks" possible (I just graduated with a perfect 4.0 GPA, thank you very much) and I really dig swooping in to a goobered up situation and making it observably and undeniably better. Apparently so much so that I am unconsciously and magnetically drawn to goobered up situations.
I recently took a new position at the small liberal arts college where I work. Ooh...a promotion. Look at me, look at me. I was very excited about it because the possibilities to make "meaningful contributions" (secret code word for 'good grades') seemed to be endless. And I could see all kinds of areas for improvement (more 'good grades'). The true magnitude of the job started to set in after about 3 weeks. I'm now 8 weeks in and ready - again - to run for the hills.
Silly me.
I keep getting hit by the same bus - splattered over and over again across this familiar windshield - but I still haven't learned to stay out of the street.
It came to me this morning that I am trying to be the whole hive. I'm trying to gather all the pollen from all the flowers in all the meadows as far as my eyes can see. And then I'm trying to carry that oversized load back to my office to make honey out of it. Not just any honey. No sir. The finest, sweetest honey there ever was - this side of Fairbanks Avenue.
I'm chagrined by the arrogance of that.
Here's the thing. I'm one damn bee. I'm not even the queen bee. I'm one little worker bee who can only visit one flower at a time. I don't have to be the best bee. I don't have to collect the most or the best quality pollen. I can go to the boss bee and say "hey, there's a lot of flowers out there that I'm not going to get to...just thought you ought to know" then let it go. I don't have to see the entire field as my personal responsibility. It's not. I can only do what I can do and if I let it kill me or run me off, I'm not helping anyone really.
It's ok to get a "B" in the class.
Gotta buzz....
Wondering Soul
I read this quote yesterday in the essay by C.J. Gall featured in this month's edition of The Sun (subscriptions are worth every cent). She is talking about transitions, particularly the one when parent and child begin their disconnection from one another, and how in retrospect it always seems to be captured in a moment quite unexpected. I experienced one of those yesterday. But that is not the subject of this post.
If you've read any of my previous entries you'll notice that "work" is a common subject for me. I feel pretty strongly that what you "do" in the world is an expression of who you are and the farther the duties of the job from the real mission and purpose set forth by your soul, the more distress you experience while performing those duties. The workplace is also fertile with opportunities to recognize one's shadow side. You can shine there...and you can get crushed by your own darkness.
We know this about human relationships because we are lifted and crushed by them all the time. As we age, we come to expect a barrage of uncomfortable enlightenments when we enter into the entanglements of love. But, at work?
Work, to me, is my personal relationship with the outer world. It is the material aspect of my experience. All other things are internal: emotions, thoughts, passions, spiritual connections. But work is the most outward. It is what flows out of our hands and feet. It is what we throw our weight into. We dig, we hammer, we type. We DO all sorts of things.
Work is also where the creepy part of my "doing" nature bursts out - specifically debilitating perfectionism ("anything worth doing is worth OVERdoing") and stubborn unwillingness to let anything fall off the plate...ever. Generally, employers love this about me. I love this about me until I find myself buried and non-functional. And what happens when I get to THAT place? I want to run like hell. When I get to that place I can't see the forest for the items on the to-do list.
Now, the Universe, out of its infinite wisdom and sometimes mean sense of humor, does so love to send us remedial lessons when we just don't seem to be getting it. Trust me on this...I am not getting it. I am obsessive about earning the "highest marks" possible (I just graduated with a perfect 4.0 GPA, thank you very much) and I really dig swooping in to a goobered up situation and making it observably and undeniably better. Apparently so much so that I am unconsciously and magnetically drawn to goobered up situations.
I recently took a new position at the small liberal arts college where I work. Ooh...a promotion. Look at me, look at me. I was very excited about it because the possibilities to make "meaningful contributions" (secret code word for 'good grades') seemed to be endless. And I could see all kinds of areas for improvement (more 'good grades'). The true magnitude of the job started to set in after about 3 weeks. I'm now 8 weeks in and ready - again - to run for the hills.
Silly me.
I keep getting hit by the same bus - splattered over and over again across this familiar windshield - but I still haven't learned to stay out of the street.
It came to me this morning that I am trying to be the whole hive. I'm trying to gather all the pollen from all the flowers in all the meadows as far as my eyes can see. And then I'm trying to carry that oversized load back to my office to make honey out of it. Not just any honey. No sir. The finest, sweetest honey there ever was - this side of Fairbanks Avenue.
I'm chagrined by the arrogance of that.
Here's the thing. I'm one damn bee. I'm not even the queen bee. I'm one little worker bee who can only visit one flower at a time. I don't have to be the best bee. I don't have to collect the most or the best quality pollen. I can go to the boss bee and say "hey, there's a lot of flowers out there that I'm not going to get to...just thought you ought to know" then let it go. I don't have to see the entire field as my personal responsibility. It's not. I can only do what I can do and if I let it kill me or run me off, I'm not helping anyone really.
It's ok to get a "B" in the class.
Gotta buzz....
Wondering Soul
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