Suffering is the result of attachment.
This is something my therapist reminds me of a lot, and he freely attributes it to the writings of Buddhism. He's an equal opportunity user of religious tenants in our session and has mentioned, among other things: Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism. (It's kind of nice to sit on a couch that welcomes science and logic, feelings and things that are less than rational, and world religion in equal measure.)
What he's really saying though is, when you get attached to something, you place expectation on it. You make plans based on the idea of counting on something that will hold those plans up. And since each thing you build on top of this foundation is contingent upon the thing before it, and since the foundation may or may not live up to the expectation, if any of this goes against the grain of the wood you're laying on this foundation or if the foundation itself wobbles . . . the expectations come crashing down. Unmet. And then what you have on your hands is a mess to clean up, and something akin to a bruise on your ego with a healthy dose of disappointment. Frustration, kicking yourself, sadness for what could have been but wasn't. Suffering.
Expectation leads to suffering.
And I am the queen of expectation. Mostly, I hold myself to painfully high standards, which is another way of saying I create expectation and the accompanying suffering for myself. I owe a lot of what I've accomplished to setting the bar high, and then going above and beyond to get there, but along the way I also have signed up for more than my fair share of being hard on myself. In fact, just today I was telling a story that I often tell when I'm remembering how hard work-life balance was for me in my old job (or alternatively if I'm looking to make fun of myself) about a time when I was trying to support an entire branch's worth of centers by my lonesome and working well over 80 hours a week. It meant eating a lot of Subway and being on the road from 7 am until often well past 8 or 9pm. It meant that this chic, the one who hates speaking out loud (to anyone if I can help it) before 8 or 9am, and has low blood sugar (especially in the mornings) was trying to work out at 5am and then on the road for 10-14 hours a day. I was saying how I came home on a Wednesday at 10pm and realized my choices were to stay up until past 1am doing laundry or get up at 4am to do laundry. Orrrrrr secret door number three: iron and re-wear my pants and drive 4 blocks to Walgreens and buy new underwear. I took secret door number three but as I was driving the 4 blocks there and back I was mentally consumed by the feeling I was (and I quote) failing life.
That's right: not working too much, or sacrificing for my team and my job, or going above and beyond for the clients and centers I supported. But failing basic life 101. It's funny, but it isn't. 20/20 hindsight took so long to sink in that it was literally more than a year before I looked back on that night (which I have vivid memories of) and realized that if there was any failure it was in the planning that left me as the only consultant in a territory covering three states, or on the part of the expectations set by my employer.
This is related to, but not the same as my musings on failure. Abstractly, I understand the uses of failure. The importance of failure. Even the necessity of failure. But I see it in terms of how successful people (Ali, Steve Jobs, JK Rowling, and Einstein come to mind) carved a path, picked themselves up, and learned what not to do. Even my own failures are best viewed from a safe distance. The time I didn't get cast in a show, but discovered my passion for stage managing as a result, the time I failed a class at a college that didn't have grades (oh, yeah. It takes someone really spesh like me to fail even in the absence of grades), the time I moved across the country for my fiance only to find myself alone knowing no one at the worst, most emotionally raw moment I've ever experienced. Sitting where I sit now, 20 years, 14 years, 4 years after those hard, weak, disappointing moments and outcomes I see how those hardships, those mistakes, those speed bumps opened my eyes, made me grow, bent me in a new or even better direction. From this safe perspective, I can be grateful for my expectations not being met, for those failures, and I can even see how they lead to successes.
From here. But never ever from the moment. Really. Never.
A lot of people SAY they're their own worst critic. But for me in the moment of defeat, I become a poor, abused child. I don't just beat myself up, I beat myself up, followed by kicking myself while I'm down (from the beating), then, while I'm lower than low (from the beating followed by kicking) I bring on the flogging and torture, and then I ask my wounded, limping, inner self to write "I am a terrible, miserable failure. I am not worthy" on the proverbial blackboard 100 times. Then I ask that poor child to write an essay about what she's learned from all of this ( . . . hence this blog).
It's ironic, because I'm told I'm a good person to have on hand when things aren't working out as planned. I'm compassionate and I often even say things that aren't just supportive, but are smart and understanding. I get it, I let people feel their feelings, but then I also help them see the road ahead. this is what I'm told. So . . . why can't I tell myself these things?
Well, hey, this is what therapy is for, and so we've come full circle to where I started - my therapist says attachment leads to suffering. There's a multifaceted idea he and I are working on . . . ways to notice how much I judge myself, ways to work on it without setting the expectation of banishing it too high . . . leading to more judgement and suffering. Ways to pick myself up when I do find myself rolling on the ground taking kicks.
But, I've had a lot of speed bumps this year. If I'm honest, my expectation was that I would have a job long before now. That my feet would be back on the road of figuring out how I want things to align in my life, and what I'm going to be putting my passion and energy and drive and killer work-ethic towards. I truly never expected to be just a few days away from turning 35 still wondering what opportunities I might have, and how the pieces would fit together.
I've realized lately that standards are one thing, and judgement, expectation, and self-flogging are completely another. I was in the process of discussing a job that, frankly, had more liabilities than assets. It very likely would have held me in place, for not enough money or challenge, while making it nigh to impossible to job hunt for anything else. We mutually reached the conclusion that when she moves her business forward, she will be ready for my higher skill set, but until then, she needs to hire to fill the need she has now. It was perfectly reasonable, and more than that, self-preservational (even, gasp, hopeful and optimistic of me) for me to reach the conclusions that this job didn't meet my standards and might create as many issues as it solved if there wasn't a clear path for me to move onto greater things (and there wasn't). The problem that I avoided was getting attached to this interview as the solution to my rapidly scary problem.
I've learned this lesson the hard way a few times over this year. I've worked so hard to apply only for jobs I really want, so this means that when I get an interview, or worse, a second interview, I feel, well, attached. And what follows is expectation. And over and over, that has lead to disappointment and suffering.
My therapist is of the opinion that when I figure out how to let go, when I stop white-knuckling, when I can be truly and authentically OK without slotting everything into a plan, a design, a structure (all disguises for expectation, by the way) that is when I will find and land the right opportunity.
I have some significant reservations about attaching my job search results to something mystical. Of the jobs I've been most excited about and not gotten, one of them was really hiring from within. Another changed the details of the job as well as the salary after I had already interviewed several times. A third turned out not to have the budget for another full time employee. A fourth re-wrote the position significantly around another candidate, and that wasn't the job I had applied for so I was just not in the running anymore. I'm not sure that not getting any of those jobs had to do with the cloud of judgement and expectation I let mushroom around me.
But I can't deny the fact that I have this desire for all of the struggle and emotional work and mis-steps to lead to something amazing. Some job that is better, less commute, better for my life outside of work, contributing to the greater good, thrilling, worthy of my passion and skills. You know, all around SHINY. And If I can't deny that desire, I also can't ignore that that is expectation setting me up for pain again.
That is the truth, though. I want things. I want to know if I am going to be able to swing it to go to my dear friend's long overdue wedding celebration in August. I want to have the ability to feel secure enough on my own path that I have some sense of how I would walk that way with my person . . . if it turned out we both wanted that. I want to fly to New Jersey and meet the beautiful happy baby some of my best friends' had. I want to work out with my trainer again. I want to not have to tell people, "I'm not sure I can do that. We'll see what I can afford." I want to go hiking without worrying what would happen if my knees blew out again and I had no insurance. I want to not have my answer to almost everything be, "I have NOOOOOOOOOO idea what my life will look like in three months so . . ."
I want things. I want them two months ago. and I think what I really want is a smidge of stability and some predictability. I think I want some safety and I want some relief from doubt. It's like my favorite Toad the Wet Sprocket song,"I spend too much time seeking shelter. World without end couldn't hold her."
I don't know if getting better at free-falling will help me get a job, but as long as I'm out here, falling fast without a chute, it probably pays to get better at it anyways. Lord knows I'm not working, soooooo, if not now, when?! (A little unemployment humor goes a long way.)
Showing posts with label universal structure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label universal structure. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
Failure is not an option
As it turns out, my friends are a very accomplished bunch. Lots of Master's degrees, PH.Ds, fancy post docs, and important jobs that actually make people's lives better. As a result of aiming high, it means that there is a lot of success, but also a lot of experience with falling off the proverbial horse and fighting back.
As my Sensei used to say, increasing success means increasing failures. In theory, the idea is that by increasing the number of attempts you make, you may have more failures, but you will also make enough attempts (and learn from the failures) such that you achieve success faster. In reality, it means having the resolve, the resiliency, and the relentlessness to keep getting up each and every time you fall. And it means having a deep confidence and unshakable faith that getting up each time matters and will cumulatively get you that much closer to your objective.
I've been thinking this a lot as I've seen the stars align or not for me, and for my friends over the last few weeks. One of my beloved friend's succes and a new option might mean a drastic change for another friend in how he looks at his future employment options. Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, another dear friend has worked his everything off to jump through hoops and get all the appropriate initials after his name, to find an environment that not only matches his qualifications and interests, but that allowed him to positively impact others only to give them 2 years and not be invited to keep infecting others with his passion next fall. I have as many friends in academia who have jobs as those who don't, at this point, and let's be clear - these are not just very well trained individuals in their fields, but also some of the smartest people I know in real life.
Of course, I thought I was leaving that game when I Mastered out of my Ph.D. program. And now I lie on my couch and marvel at how people with degrees from MIT and people who have Ph.Ds from top 10 programs in their field are asked to take more time to do post-docs (read: supervised research paid at a very low rate in some OTHER ostensibly "more established" Ph.D's lab) and postpone their career . . . you know, after passing every exam known to man, defending papers and proposals orally, living on pittances for 5-7 years, and achieving graduation from the 23rd grade. Yes, absolutely, more training and waiting to dive in is what makes sense, no? And how can these people not being able to find good employment that aligns with their passions be in common with me?
When I left grad school, it followed what I can only describe as prolonged trauma that made it impossible for me to continue the research I had entered my studies aimed at. That trauma was what caused me to pack the personal items I had in that lab and on my desk and become a nomadic grad in one of the rotating "TA" offices for the year. I spent a semester looking for a new lab and advisor, but politics and circumstance prevented that avenue of soldiering forward as well. So . . . I made plans to exit.
Sounds simple, and logical, right? It was anything but. It was everything but. There were a lot of exit interviews and job hunting, but mostly there were two tapes I had to keep playing in my head and two I had to try and drown out. The two loops I had to try and eliminate from my internal sound-system were, "You're a quitter," and "You will regret not sticking it out." The two tapes I tried to queue up over the top of these were, "You're stopping something that is harmful. You are preventing what amounts to abuse. It's not the same as quitting. Not the same AT ALL." And, equally important," you WILL get a job and figure out what happens next."
I got a job out of sheer will and luck and persistence and putting the time into job hunting over and over and over. But I had to play these tapes in my head diligently every day in order to keep moving forward as options I pursued winked out one by one, moving to different labs, moving to different programs at different universities, jobs I wanted and didn't get. Otherwise, it would have been very easy to feel defeated, which would have been the worst response and would have prevented me from seeing the new opportunities popping up. So, I kept moving forward, choosing to feign faith in the results I had no idea if I would garner.
Failure wasn't an option, and so I made it work that way. I had a six month deadline to get a full time job or else commit myself to summer jobs that it would then be very hard to back out of. And I got a full time job about 2 weeks before I had to set all of that in motion. I "made it so", in Picardian fashion. It wouldn't have been terrible to run 4 weeks of Karate camp and have taught for 6 weeks but it would have meant remaining engaged with the university I needed badly to leave, at least for half of that work, and perhaps worse, I would have had 10 weeks where it would have been very hard to extract myself for interviews or to start better jobs with futures beyond Labor Day. I posted a note in my kitchen saying "Failure is not an option," and adhered to this. This was a throw back to the one or two all nighters I would pull every year in college trying to complete final calculus assignments, take home logic finals, and papers after having worked until midnight or so. (The busiest times for Hampshire's version of RAs to pull off programs and events, do peer level counseling and meetings, and actually work with students during house office hours were . . . go figure, the end of the semester. And of course, this was also when we were hiring staff for the next semester so, what was a 15-20 hour a week job always became a 30-40 hour a week job during the last 3 weeks of the term. at least some all-nighters became expected for me as a matter of reality, not bad planning.) I used to hang this sign off of the nearest book shelf, facing me, as I feverishly revised papers. And it worked.
So, why hasn't it worked for my friends? They too need jobs and not to need to take steps backwards. Bills to pay, households, marriages, and responsibilities to tend to. They need to not do stupid things for money, and things that take them away from their chosen professions . . . at which, I would add, they are not only very well trained, but exceedingly skilled and good at. And, why hasn't it yet worked for me in this job search? In this case, I do not have stupid summer jobs lined up. Failure really, really, truly, really-really is not an option. I can tutor for $13 an hour this summer, and find some other part time job to try and fill that gap. But, in actuality, that's going to put me in a hole pretty fast. So, for reals now, a job before my birthday is what's needed.
I shall note it on my birthday list.
I'm of some different thoughts about why the failure isn't an option strategy isn't getting results now, for me, or for my friends. On the one hand, finding the right job, the job that makes you want to get up in the morning, the job that pays you well enough and allows you to have the work-life balance that works for you and yours, the job that excites you enough that you're willing to pitch in on the un-thrilling days . . . well, that's a bigger problem to solve than finishing a paper. That's a bigger problem than trying to finish four papers . . and that's saying something since my papers at Hampshire were often 30+ pages! You can't just will it. I mean, I did, but (and here's the other thing) - that was six years ago. So, yes, that's right, I am going to reference how bad this job market is (for what I believe is the first time on this blog). Six years ago was a different story, for shiz.
I also think that it's possible that we three have not had exactly the failures we need yet. That, in reality, of course, failure is an option and may be what paves the way for success. That failure has uses, even when it feels . . . untimely or inconvenient or even beyond uncomfortable. As in, "Ok, it seemed like a good job on paper, but now that I've interviewed I see what they really meant when they said ____ in the posting and that should've been a red flag," or "Hmmm, next time I should follow up on that app sooner so I can stay on their radar."
Or, it's just possible that this will be like what one of these very friends mentioned above told me once, on a bitterly cold night in January as we waited for a bus. He said, "At the moment I give up, it will arrive. But I can't tell myself to give up and fake it out. If I'm only saying I give up, then it won't show. But at the moment I truly am done believing then the universe will provide."
This is hard to explain to people who don't know him but this was the first moment I knew my friend to be a hopeless optimist. Possibly glass overflowing, sappy, optimism at times. He may, occasionally, show some sand-paper to the world rather than baring his skin. He also is steeped in how to make things better and in his world, this means being very clear about what is NOT optimal. To some this looks like complaining, but to me, I know it comes from deep belief that things CAN be made better and a logical progression that requires him to fist be explicit about what needs to be improved. I didn't know it until he talked about how giving up being related to how good things happen, But he believes in some structure of the universe. Some force for good. Some way of creating balance with the force.
It may seem strange that I've tagged this post about failure with "optimism" but I think what I'm saying is, failure sucks. For me, it hurts and wounds and leaves bruises. It makes me want to give up and pull covers over my head in the moment. But sometimes it makes me step out of things that weren't working for me. I failed to get a Ph.D, but succeeded at standing up for myself, getting a Master's, and finding a job in my field. I have failed, so far, at finding the right new job in 2012 (but I only have to get it right once, eh?), but have succeeded in purging a lot of demons from my head, and reconfiguring how healthy and ambitious can align in my life moving forward. And while I've had some very disheartening interviews and frustrating almost-job-offer situations in this four months of unemployment, I've also honed in on a closer approximation to what kind of jobs could turn into the right ones for me. It only takes one thing to change and turn all of that into total success - and not just success that looks like a paycheck, but success that looks like a wholly renovated life for me where all those failures stack up to me sitting in a completely different place, with a much better view than when I had my last paycheck.
I think that I still think that the universe will provide. And I think I still think it will happen before my bank account hits zero. And I think my friends will find what they need for right now, and, eventually, in the long run. So, even though the glasses have some failures in them, and though they may not be half full, I think there's enough there to keep us going. That is the most I can ask for today . . . but watch out when my birthday approaches because I will certainly feel free to ask for more then.
As my Sensei used to say, increasing success means increasing failures. In theory, the idea is that by increasing the number of attempts you make, you may have more failures, but you will also make enough attempts (and learn from the failures) such that you achieve success faster. In reality, it means having the resolve, the resiliency, and the relentlessness to keep getting up each and every time you fall. And it means having a deep confidence and unshakable faith that getting up each time matters and will cumulatively get you that much closer to your objective.
I've been thinking this a lot as I've seen the stars align or not for me, and for my friends over the last few weeks. One of my beloved friend's succes and a new option might mean a drastic change for another friend in how he looks at his future employment options. Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, another dear friend has worked his everything off to jump through hoops and get all the appropriate initials after his name, to find an environment that not only matches his qualifications and interests, but that allowed him to positively impact others only to give them 2 years and not be invited to keep infecting others with his passion next fall. I have as many friends in academia who have jobs as those who don't, at this point, and let's be clear - these are not just very well trained individuals in their fields, but also some of the smartest people I know in real life.
Of course, I thought I was leaving that game when I Mastered out of my Ph.D. program. And now I lie on my couch and marvel at how people with degrees from MIT and people who have Ph.Ds from top 10 programs in their field are asked to take more time to do post-docs (read: supervised research paid at a very low rate in some OTHER ostensibly "more established" Ph.D's lab) and postpone their career . . . you know, after passing every exam known to man, defending papers and proposals orally, living on pittances for 5-7 years, and achieving graduation from the 23rd grade. Yes, absolutely, more training and waiting to dive in is what makes sense, no? And how can these people not being able to find good employment that aligns with their passions be in common with me?
When I left grad school, it followed what I can only describe as prolonged trauma that made it impossible for me to continue the research I had entered my studies aimed at. That trauma was what caused me to pack the personal items I had in that lab and on my desk and become a nomadic grad in one of the rotating "TA" offices for the year. I spent a semester looking for a new lab and advisor, but politics and circumstance prevented that avenue of soldiering forward as well. So . . . I made plans to exit.
Sounds simple, and logical, right? It was anything but. It was everything but. There were a lot of exit interviews and job hunting, but mostly there were two tapes I had to keep playing in my head and two I had to try and drown out. The two loops I had to try and eliminate from my internal sound-system were, "You're a quitter," and "You will regret not sticking it out." The two tapes I tried to queue up over the top of these were, "You're stopping something that is harmful. You are preventing what amounts to abuse. It's not the same as quitting. Not the same AT ALL." And, equally important," you WILL get a job and figure out what happens next."
I got a job out of sheer will and luck and persistence and putting the time into job hunting over and over and over. But I had to play these tapes in my head diligently every day in order to keep moving forward as options I pursued winked out one by one, moving to different labs, moving to different programs at different universities, jobs I wanted and didn't get. Otherwise, it would have been very easy to feel defeated, which would have been the worst response and would have prevented me from seeing the new opportunities popping up. So, I kept moving forward, choosing to feign faith in the results I had no idea if I would garner.
Failure wasn't an option, and so I made it work that way. I had a six month deadline to get a full time job or else commit myself to summer jobs that it would then be very hard to back out of. And I got a full time job about 2 weeks before I had to set all of that in motion. I "made it so", in Picardian fashion. It wouldn't have been terrible to run 4 weeks of Karate camp and have taught for 6 weeks but it would have meant remaining engaged with the university I needed badly to leave, at least for half of that work, and perhaps worse, I would have had 10 weeks where it would have been very hard to extract myself for interviews or to start better jobs with futures beyond Labor Day. I posted a note in my kitchen saying "Failure is not an option," and adhered to this. This was a throw back to the one or two all nighters I would pull every year in college trying to complete final calculus assignments, take home logic finals, and papers after having worked until midnight or so. (The busiest times for Hampshire's version of RAs to pull off programs and events, do peer level counseling and meetings, and actually work with students during house office hours were . . . go figure, the end of the semester. And of course, this was also when we were hiring staff for the next semester so, what was a 15-20 hour a week job always became a 30-40 hour a week job during the last 3 weeks of the term. at least some all-nighters became expected for me as a matter of reality, not bad planning.) I used to hang this sign off of the nearest book shelf, facing me, as I feverishly revised papers. And it worked.
So, why hasn't it worked for my friends? They too need jobs and not to need to take steps backwards. Bills to pay, households, marriages, and responsibilities to tend to. They need to not do stupid things for money, and things that take them away from their chosen professions . . . at which, I would add, they are not only very well trained, but exceedingly skilled and good at. And, why hasn't it yet worked for me in this job search? In this case, I do not have stupid summer jobs lined up. Failure really, really, truly, really-really is not an option. I can tutor for $13 an hour this summer, and find some other part time job to try and fill that gap. But, in actuality, that's going to put me in a hole pretty fast. So, for reals now, a job before my birthday is what's needed.
I shall note it on my birthday list.
I'm of some different thoughts about why the failure isn't an option strategy isn't getting results now, for me, or for my friends. On the one hand, finding the right job, the job that makes you want to get up in the morning, the job that pays you well enough and allows you to have the work-life balance that works for you and yours, the job that excites you enough that you're willing to pitch in on the un-thrilling days . . . well, that's a bigger problem to solve than finishing a paper. That's a bigger problem than trying to finish four papers . . and that's saying something since my papers at Hampshire were often 30+ pages! You can't just will it. I mean, I did, but (and here's the other thing) - that was six years ago. So, yes, that's right, I am going to reference how bad this job market is (for what I believe is the first time on this blog). Six years ago was a different story, for shiz.
I also think that it's possible that we three have not had exactly the failures we need yet. That, in reality, of course, failure is an option and may be what paves the way for success. That failure has uses, even when it feels . . . untimely or inconvenient or even beyond uncomfortable. As in, "Ok, it seemed like a good job on paper, but now that I've interviewed I see what they really meant when they said ____ in the posting and that should've been a red flag," or "Hmmm, next time I should follow up on that app sooner so I can stay on their radar."
Or, it's just possible that this will be like what one of these very friends mentioned above told me once, on a bitterly cold night in January as we waited for a bus. He said, "At the moment I give up, it will arrive. But I can't tell myself to give up and fake it out. If I'm only saying I give up, then it won't show. But at the moment I truly am done believing then the universe will provide."
This is hard to explain to people who don't know him but this was the first moment I knew my friend to be a hopeless optimist. Possibly glass overflowing, sappy, optimism at times. He may, occasionally, show some sand-paper to the world rather than baring his skin. He also is steeped in how to make things better and in his world, this means being very clear about what is NOT optimal. To some this looks like complaining, but to me, I know it comes from deep belief that things CAN be made better and a logical progression that requires him to fist be explicit about what needs to be improved. I didn't know it until he talked about how giving up being related to how good things happen, But he believes in some structure of the universe. Some force for good. Some way of creating balance with the force.
It may seem strange that I've tagged this post about failure with "optimism" but I think what I'm saying is, failure sucks. For me, it hurts and wounds and leaves bruises. It makes me want to give up and pull covers over my head in the moment. But sometimes it makes me step out of things that weren't working for me. I failed to get a Ph.D, but succeeded at standing up for myself, getting a Master's, and finding a job in my field. I have failed, so far, at finding the right new job in 2012 (but I only have to get it right once, eh?), but have succeeded in purging a lot of demons from my head, and reconfiguring how healthy and ambitious can align in my life moving forward. And while I've had some very disheartening interviews and frustrating almost-job-offer situations in this four months of unemployment, I've also honed in on a closer approximation to what kind of jobs could turn into the right ones for me. It only takes one thing to change and turn all of that into total success - and not just success that looks like a paycheck, but success that looks like a wholly renovated life for me where all those failures stack up to me sitting in a completely different place, with a much better view than when I had my last paycheck.
I think that I still think that the universe will provide. And I think I still think it will happen before my bank account hits zero. And I think my friends will find what they need for right now, and, eventually, in the long run. So, even though the glasses have some failures in them, and though they may not be half full, I think there's enough there to keep us going. That is the most I can ask for today . . . but watch out when my birthday approaches because I will certainly feel free to ask for more then.
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