What's Worth Doing?

Here is my favorite "zen" question:

What is it that you are not doing
while you are busy doing
what it is you are doing?

I like this saying for at least two reasons. The first is that I made it up myself! The second is that when I reflect upon it from time to time, it helps me tweak my priorities.... and I'm needing to tweak right now.

As you have noticed, I have been posting less frequently. What I have not been doing (writing a post each week) is because of what I am doing (teaching three social work classes at USM).

Both pursuits are extremely important to me; and yet, at times I find myself torn and wishing I could spend lots more time doing both. (I've also not been quilting, but let's not even go there!) Since my students are my newest readers as well as my current responsibility, I write today's post for them. It's about priorities.

On the first day of class, their faces were as bright and shiny as the blank pages of their new notebooks. But now, with pages of scribbled notes they may not be able to decipher at exam time, they appear to be asking:

"What am I doing here?"
"What's this all for?"
And above all, "What am I missing out on while I'm doing this?"

In other words, the realization of the enormous commitment they have made to becoming professional social workers has hit them hard.

All of us, students or not, face the challenge of what's worth doing. The greatest struggles arise when two or more vital pursuits compete for our limited time and energy.

The usual advice - to "examine and adjust your priorities" - never works for me. It suggests that if you were to examine your heart, you'd see that one priority has more weight than another. But my heart holds dear many people and many pursuits. It would be a Solomon's choice to pick one.

When two or more pursuits are equally compelling in your life (and I believe that this is often the case), you need to understand how the two are related: how they complement and inform one another. When you do that, you are less likely to feel that you are stealing from one to do the other. When I write, my teaching improves. When I teach, my writing improves. When I'm doing one, I don't have to feel guilty about not doing the other because, in a way, I'm doing both.

Now that may sound like compromising the quality of both endeavors. But my thinking is guided by something William James once said:

"The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it."

Applying that principle, teaching and writing are both worth doing. And I don't believe that James meant spending your life doing some one thing that would make you famous or for which statues would be built in your honor. You see, he also said:

"I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions, and big successes. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets..."

So, I think I'll tend to my rootlets. Maybe one of them will lead me back to quilting.

Copyright 2008 starfishdoc

Shadow 101

I've just been reviewing a dog-eared copy of one of my favorite books. It is called Meeting the Shadow. If you're a follower of Carl Jung, you already know that "shadow" refers to the darker, often unconscious, and not very attractive parts of our personality that we try to keep hidden from ourselves and others.

Why would I want to reread a book on such a depressing topic? Well, because recently, I had some of my faults pointed out to me, so I thought I'd jump right in the game. Also, I know that taking a routine inventory of your shadow simply makes you a better human being. Best of all, when you do your own "shadow work" no one else has to do it for you.

Each personality is a complex mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are parts of us we are proud of, and other parts that bring us buckets full of shame and guilt. We proudly display to the world the parts we are proud of, but hide the bad and the ugly. We try to disown those negative qualities as not part of us, but that's no more possible than it was for Dr. Jekyll regarding Mr. Hyde.

A client once told me, "I'm a really good person and I would never do anything to intentionally hurt someone." Meanwhile, he was carrying on an affair, destroying his marriage, hurting his children. Yet he believed, and wanted me to believe, that despite all evidence to the contrary, he was pure goodness.

We call that denial. He was denying that big chunk of ugliness that was clearly part of him. If he had been able to confront his shadow rather than deny it, he would have owned his actions, recognized them as the result of some dark desire or need, and taken steps to avoid repeating the same behavior. When we perpetuate the facade of wonderfulness, we're likely to do the same mean and rotten things again and again!

To be imperfect is human. If we accepted our imperfections instead of perpetuating the myth of pure goodness, we might take up shadow work with eagerness. Why eagerness? Because knowing yourself, all parts of yourself, helps you to live in the world with integrity and dignity. It is a blessing to all your relationships. When you are able to own the trouble you yourself cause, you no longer project it onto someone else.

Best of all, what lurks in the shadow is not all bad. Mixed in with those ugly parts are the more interesting, vibrant, gritty parts of our personalities. When we search the shadow, we mine for gold!

Next time: More on the gold in the shadow and how shadow reveals itself to you.

copyright 2007 starfishdoc

Mind Your G's and Q's

My second summer job as a teenager (my first being counter girl at Zaccagnini's Pastries), was clerk/typist for the mayor of my home town. He must have liked me, because he would have been crazy to hire me for my typing ability.

On my first day, he handed me a Dictaphone and told me to type a status report on the fire department. (For those of you who don't know what a Dictaphone is, consider being plugged into your iPod and having to type what you hear.) I had never used one, so whenever he paused on the tape, I threw in some punctuation. That's when he told me I was "comma happy." (I do love a good comma, but not as much as I love parentheses.)

Whenever someone in our town won an award or achieved something special, the mayor sent out a letter of recognition. The last sentence in all the letters was boilerplate. It read, "Congratulations, you are the pride of your community." Nice, right? With one tiny typo, I converted one such letter to, "Congratulations, you are the price of your community." Good thing the mayor never signed anything he himself hadn't proofread.

Recently, an avid reader of this blog wrote to tell me how she had misread my list of topics, and was very eager to read the posts that had to do with "guilting." I don't know if she was disappointed, but I know she must have been surprised when they turned out to be about "quilting."

But she sure got me to thinking. Just like love, guilting is a verb. Well, it's really not a verb, but should be. Here's my attempt at a definition. Guilting: the use of statements and behaviors to manipulate someone into thinking they have wronged you, and thus getting them to do what you want. Behaviors include crying, sulking, pouting (women, usually) anger and silent treatment (men mostly). May include crossed arms and foot-stamping, slamming doors and statements like, "You don't really love me," or "I thought you were my friend."

If you've never been, well, guilty of guilting someone, raise your hand. Those of you with your hand up may leave the room. Hmmm, I don't see any hands. So here's a mature and direct strategy to replace guilting.

1. Identify the need or desire you have.
2. Acknowledge it as a need or desire, not a god-given right.
3. Ask your partner/friend if they can indulge you in this need.
4. Find out what you can do for them in return.

Thanks, MG, for getting my wheels turning on this one. Shows you just how important my readers are.

And if I had continued to glaze donuts, where would we all be now?

Copyright starfishdoc 2007