Emerge - Ramble Two

Hi there and welcome to month two of the Emerge Project. If you are one of the 23 of ramblers signed up to share in this journey, thank you for your contributions to last month’s Ramble. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can join us at any time along the way. You can read more about Emerge here. Ramble Two’s question and sign-up form can be found at the end in this blog.

Ramble One asked you to consider, “In what ways are you experiencing a loss in effectiveness or vigor? What concerns or interests you about those losses?’

Your offerings were open and vulnerable. What follows is my best effort to capture the essence of your incredibly rich contributions. I now realize it will be impossible for me to encapsulate the full breadth of your experiences, so I will focus mostly on the shared experiences. There was a distinctly common theme among your responses - People are putting a lot of effort into being, or trying to be, productive, and people are exhausted. In almost every case, you talked about the ways in which the last year has opened new opportunities, has helped you to realize something significant, has invited new behaviors, hobbies, and ways of being into your life.  You are trying to make the most of an extraordinary situation with the hope that ‘when all this is over, it won’t all have been for nothing’. In the face of uncertainty, you have found safety, some control, and in many cases, meaning. You also suggest that these ‘gains’ might not have happened if it weren’t for an extended pause in the normal way of doing things. A productivity mindset has been helpful and I sense people feel grateful for that.

But. And. (You choose).

You might recall the Pema Chodron quote I shared about a year ago now. None of us is ok, but all of us is fine. Within, or perhaps underneath the realizations, reflections, and new opportunities, there is palpable exhaustion. For some, the fact that some people seem to be thriving only exacerbates the feeling that they are at times, barely surviving.

Susan – How is that my friends all seem to be baking, learning a new language, getting a puppy, all while losing 10 pounds with Noom? Some days, I can’t even get out of bed.

Clare – I find myself really quite envious of others who appear (at least online) to be full of effectiveness and vigor, it can make me feel even worse, like a failure.

Clare and Susan’s comments evoked the image of an iceberg. What are we doing that is visible above the water, on social media and in our small talk, and what’s happening below the surface? The iceberg metaphor is often used to suggest that what’s ‘really going on’ is somehow hidden from us, lurking in our unconscious or, if in our subconscious, perhaps submerged in shame. As it pertains to our question around loss of effectiveness and vigor, I like the use of the metaphor around what we show to others in the form of gain, versus what we might not show to others around the extent of our losses. Here’s what you told me about your gains and losses:

Does this metaphor resonate with you? What does this image evoke for you?

My takeaway - the need to be productive in ‘new’ ways has been critical to our coping and meaning making over the last 12 months. Pre-COVID activities that once allowed us to feel productive and accomplished are at best impaired, mostly diminished, and at worst causing damage to our confidence, orientation, and sense of self-worth.  The critical question I am left with is this -  Are the new ways of being productive balancing out the lack of productivity we are experiencing from areas of our Pre-COVID life? Should they? I can’t help thinking that it is in this gap, between the trying on of the new ways and the lack of interest, effectiveness and vigor in the old ways, where our anxiety, doubt, sadness, ambivalence, exhaustion, and sense of loss lie. There is something about that space that appears irreconcilable right now. The gap at times feels unbridgeable.

There are 8 ramblers have experienced a dramatic change in their professional life over the last 12 months: 1 retired, 2 decided to initiate a long overdue job change, 2 were already between jobs, and 3 were laid off. I am one of them and have shared in my previous Rambles the struggle, and opportunity to reinvent myself professionally. Kristin, Su, Clare and Jordan all relate to the ambivalence around this unexpected juncture:

Kristin - But, are these simple life skills just passing time as I somehow wait for my previous "life" to re-emerge? I find myself forcing a daily agenda to get things done, albeit projects I have always wanted to understand. But when I stop and listen, it feels like a loss, a mourning for my previous accomplishments and makes me question my daily and future vigor. Honestly, do I even really want what I had (financially, sure)? What deep pride am I getting from my new-found skills anyway? Is there a new life balance that can give me satisfaction when much of my professional work has defined me?

Su - During COVID I lost my job. This was devastating as I realized how much of my sense of self was invested in my work.  Losing my job meant days of sitting with myself and a whole lot of time for reflection. Ironically, that is something I was craving before it was forced upon me. I have had to adjust my understanding of "work" and hope that this shift and time spent away from "work" does not result in atrophy...

Jordan - I have no idea what is coming next!!! That's both exhilarating and terrifying . A chapter of my life is ending. I will never even go back to my office under "normal" circumstances. At the same time, I don't think we can go back to "business as usual" and I know that I never will. I've been running regularly and doing yoga three times a week. This is something I did for myself during quarantine, and I want to maintain the discipline of this rigor. I never made time for myself before. I was fat and drinking a lot and unhappy. I've made a decision to remove the thing making me most unhappy (my job), so now I really have no excuse. THAT concerns me.

Clare – I am experiencing considerable ambivalence as to whether I want to go back to an old way of working or whether I can find a new way that takes more account of my own well-being on an ongoing basis.

Clare’s ambivalence around old ways and new ways serves as a pivot towards Ramble Two’s Emerge question. I feel like we are being encouraged and led towards a notion that by the fall of this year we might be able to travel again, children will be educated in-person, and offices may reopen etc. In other words, some resumption of normality. That’s 5 months away (not uncoincidentally the amount of months left in the Emerge Project). Is that enough time for you? Yes, we desperately want to travel again and finally visit loved ones more safely, but we also have a lot of unanswered questions and a great deal of ambivalence. Maybe we need to spend a little longer in this gap between old ways and new ways? If the signals and cues of our pre-COVID lives return in 5 months, might they cause us to cut short a once in a life time, (or decade at least) opportunity to make lasting change in our lives?
Here is Ed’s answer to the question, ‘What concerns or interests you about these losses’?

My concern is over not having made the most of the opportunities the pandemic has provided; and the possible regrets at the thought of not having done more in relation to my own potential, and the actualizations of others; the specter of being left behind in potential advancement post-Pandemic. I'm predominantly interested in making the most of the time and opportunities that are left during the remainder of the Pandemic, and the Transition which we are currently cresting. It’s imperative I realize the lessons of the Pandemic in the coming new normal, and make the most of the remainder of my life having just lived through an historic upheaval in the story of humanity.

So, Ramble Two’s question is; If you, like Ed, Heather, Kristin, Su, Jordan, and Clare, and actually most of the rest of you, are looking to make changes in your life based on what you have learned over the last 12 months, or at the very least, have more clarity about what you might need and want moving forward, to what degree are you conscious that a window of opportunity is closing?

I hope you will add your thoughts on this by contributing to Ramble 2. Click here or on the green button below to fill out the google form.

Thanks everyone and see you in a month.!