In Praise of Effort

Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment

I want to take a moment and reflect on what we value in learning – both in ourselves and in others. It is so easy to be focused on the goal, the end result of knowledge or skill achieved. We are so quick to congratulate someone on reaching that goal – without noting how easy or hard it was to get there. Every day we encounter messages that reinforce the idea of end goals, of achievements, of someplace to get to that’s better than here.

This is in direct conflict with the messages that we pull out to comfort someone when they fall short of achieving some goal. That’s when we say, “That’s ok. You gave it your best.” or “Keep trying. You’ll get there!”

I think about this pattern and how it directly undermines placing value on effort. It takes away value from the process of learning, from the journey of discovery.

I study a lot. I teach a lot. I know that we all learn at different paces. Not only that, but even though I’m generally a good student and smart, I know that I learn at different paces depending on the subject, what else is going on in my life, or what else is churning in my mind.

This focus on the end result instead of the process makes it no surprise to me that our impatient culture is rife with get-rich-quick schemes and convenience everything. I have known many kids and adults who give up quickly when things get hard, or who don’t even try because they expect they won’t be able to do it well. I’ve found it depressing that people take note when I “work hard” as though it’s something unusual.

When I teach or coach, it’s heartbreaking to see people who fall short of their goals despite having worked really hard, but it’s even worse to then watch them beat themselves up. Their frustration and disappointment then takes on a flavor of shame. I also find that it closes them down from being able to absorb anything else and makes it nearly impossible to enjoy the process of learning.  I’ve seen this happen in academic settings, doing athletics or dance, and even in personal transformation work. We are never far from an image of where we “should” be.

I would like to invite us all to consider changing what we focus on. It will require a shift of perspective, of language, of core structures. What if we always made two evaluations – one for effort and one for achievement? What if each was graded separately? What if we started to drop the achievement and just focused on effort? What if “success” was measured against an individual’s potential and not against an abstract level? What could happen?

And what if we focused on the experience of learning itself? The incremental insights and improvements that we accumulate throughout the long process of trying out something new? Could we learn to enjoy everything that we’re learning whether we do it well at the end or not? What if we took on the idea that learning is infinite and there is no one who knows all? That everyone has a perspective they can contribute and that there is always more to learn? That we are all students together?

What if “E for Effort” really was the highest grade of all?

Coda: I send this out as a challenge to our society and to myself. I am definitely someone who sets a high bar for herself, who evaluates herself on achievement, who can forget to enjoy the journey. And I am also someone who has experienced peace and happiness every time I manage to remember. So I write as both a challenge and a reminder.

This article in the NY Magazine is quite related. I read it years ago and have been thinking about it ever since.

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Owning a Judgment

Posted on August 2, 2011 | 2 Comments

Wherein I own a specific judgment, and discuss what judgments reveal:

It’s about time that I own up here to the fact that I can be extremely judgmental. My quickest trigger is when I think that someone is co-opting a long-standing tradition, particularly when I then see them blend it with something else to turn it into a “new” thing and they market themselves as a “teacher.” My judgment is at its worst when I perceive that the tradition comes from a “brown” culture and the teacher of this “new” thing isn’t of that culture (usually White, or at least raised solidly American). It is not, however, limited to just this.

Living in San Francisco and having been involved in leftist politics my entire life, it feels like I bump up against this trigger almost every day.

I get triggered because there’s a part of me that feels like the original tradition is being misunderstood, appropriated, and/or fragmented, not being explored or honored in its entirety. There’s also a part of me that feels like the new “teacher” is disrespecting the traditions of apprenticeship, the depth that comes from life-long study. I am saddened by people saying they “know” a topic. I love the sense that something is infinitely unknowable, that there’s always more to learn.

I judge what I perceive as arrogance. I idolize being humble.

What makes this ridiculous is that I am, at the same time, deeply enamored of innovation and of “mash-up” approaches to art and science. I am a fan of “figure it out as you go along” and get upset when people get stuck in the cycle of continually researching and never get to the doing of a thing.

What makes this judgment frustrating is that I often scold myself for holding back too long to put my creations out into the world, that I have a part of myself that waits for others to grant me permission to do things – and I am constantly pushing myself to give myself that permission. I get envious of the people who don’t seem to have this obstacle. I think sometimes that envy is easier to feel as a judgment.

And what makes all this painful is that I have done this myself. I am a diletante of many subjects, some of which I’ve been known to talk about “with authority.” I too have read a little or done a minor amount of study on something and then run with it. I am not completely ok with this. I judge myself for not devoting myself to a lifelong study of any individual field of study – even while I am proud of my tendency to incorporate so many different perspectives into the way I think. I feel my pride go against my desire for humility. I am in love with the idea that I am my own original creation at the same time that I value giving props to the people and schools of thought that influence me.

I find this all hard to reconcile.

The thing about judgments that hit me like a thunderbolt when I learned it: Judgments point directly towards something about ourselves that we don’t like. The level of judgment is directly related to how much we fight against that part of ourselves.

The practice is to learn to recognize what I perceive as my “flaws” and accept them, even love them. And then I anticipate my judgments will fade into something more reasonable and softer, like an opinion or a point of view. Or maybe it’ll be anger because there’s something legitimately wrong. Meanwhile, I’m sure I’ll continue to be myself, learning a little bit of this and that, and excited about the latest blended something or other that allowed me see something new.

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Which has more pull: Past or Future?

Posted on July 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

This idea caught my attention the other day: Learning to pay attention to the difference between taking an action in order to avoid the past vs. taking an action in order to realize a possible future.

When I’m motivated by the future, I find I have more energy. That future vision can give me extra strength to tackle difficult decisions, to take a little more risk, to withstand more pain in order to achieve something greater. When I’ve been called on to mediate a difficult situation, I’ve learned again and again that if all the parties can agree on a shared vision for the future, the details of how to get there are far easier to negotiate. Even talking about past grievances can be less painful if preceded by a conversation about the future.

In contrast, when I am primarily trying to avoid the repeat of something that happened in the past, I feel defensive, stuck, or anxious. I am protecting myself. I find my capacity to listen and empathize dimishes. I am acting from a place of having been hurt. Paradoxically, my efforts to protect myself somehow help keep that hurt alive. It shows me that the hurt still has power over me, that it’s still very much running the show.

This came up when I was thinking about recent conversations I’ve had about difficult topics. In some, I felt powerful, awake, and alive. I was very much myself and in the present, talking clearly about what I wanted or what I needed to take care of myself without being demanding. The more I talked about it, the more energy I had and the better I felt.

In other conversations, I felt myself making a resolve to “do the right thing” or “get it over with.” My chest was tight and it felt like my vision was narrowed. I found myself nervous about choosing the wrong words, sure that I had to get it right or else I would be misinterpreted and everything would fall apart. Afterwards, I found my inner critic replaying those scenes over and over again in my head, chastising myself for word choices or even for having the conversation at all.

It’s becoming clear to me that in the first example, I was trying to achieve something for the future. In the second, I had no vision for the future, I only wanted to avoid a repeat of the past.

I want to learn this distinction because not only do I feel better in future-motivated conversations, they also have a tendency to go better. I’m more likely to achieve what I really want. Also, past-avoiding conversations have a way of making me feel more isolated while future-motivated ones leave me feeling more connected.

I want to be able to switch or at least stop myself from just reliving the past. I want to step into the future, and I want to be able to do it at will.

Of course, while I’m in the middle of something, it’s hard to stop and recognize what’s driving me. But I’m starting to sort out the clues. The easiest to identify are physical. If I feel my chest tightening and my vision narrowing, then I may be projecting some past pain on the present moment and it’s time to pause. If I feel my energy increasing, then I may be getting drawn into a vision of the future, and it’s a good time to articulate that and nurture it.

Oddly enough, the key to being able to switch from past to future is to get even more grounded in the present. If I can pause long enough to figure out what my body is telling me at that exact moment, I have a better chance at making a choice about how I want to be. And if get that choice, I’m going for the version of me that’s more alive.

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The Courage to be Goofy

Posted on July 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

In her wonderful blog, Ordinary Courage, Brene Brown wrote:

“It takes courage to be awkward, goofy, and silly.”

This made me think of so many things at once. I remembered that when I was directing theater, I would challenge actors in auditions to do something that felt out of character, that put them at risk of looking uncool. I found myself casting only those who were willing to take that risk because it showed me that they were willing to push themselves to get the best performance, to prioritize what the character needed over what they themselves needed. To me it meant that they were really actors who were committed to their craft and their art.

I thought about the process of learning something new, of the awkward stage that inevitably shows up when you haven’t quite mastered a skill but have passed the forgiveness allowed to true beginners. It’s so easy to quit at that point. Indeed, I have talked to so many who don’t even start learning some things because that awkwardness is so painful they’ll do whatever we can to avoid it – including not learning something that they’d like to do.*

And I thought about a beautiful night years ago at Burning Man – well, a night that turned out beautifully. It started off hard. I had become separated from my friends and couldn’t find them. I desperately wanted to be connected with someone or something. I cried melancholy, self-pitying tears. I started walking just to try to distract myself and heard some beautiful music come out of the HookahDome. I got into the line, excited to start dancing, knowing that dance always lifts my mood. When I finally made it inside, my heart sank again. No one was dancing. Everyone was seated on cushions around the perimeter, smoking hookahs and talking quietly. For a moment, I considered joining the crowd even though every part of my being was straining to move, to express that music. And then I swallowed my fear and walked into the open area between the tables near the DJ and started dancing. I tried to block out the knowledge that people were watching me and just let the music in. I felt like a fool and I also felt brave. After a few songs, a couple of people joined me on the dance floor. Then a few more and a few more. I danced until that DJ, Kaminanda, finished playing, thanked him and then re-emerged into the night air, filled with a sense of my own power and the lightness that I had been craving. It was a beautiful night.

*Side thought: Imagine if we decided as toddlers to give up learning how to use utensils when it got totally awkward and we kept ending up with more applesauce on our cheeks than in our mouths? Even in the face of our parents’ and siblings’ laughter, we persevered. Where did we lose that courage?

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Letting Go of the Need To Be Right

Posted on July 16, 2011 | 3 Comments

“Communication is only as good as how it lands.”

This is one of the most clear and true things that I’ve learned in recent months. I’ve witnessed (and been part of) numerous arguments which included the words “that’s not what I said!” And I’ve come to understand how utterly irrelevant that sentence is.

In the end, does it matter what words were actually spoken? I’m really starting to think “not much.” What matters is what was heard or understood. What matters is how that communication impacted the other person.

If I’m saying something and the other person isn’t getting what I intended, any number of things can be in the way. I could be saying the wrong words. I could be saying one thing but thinking something else – and they could be picking up on that disconnection. I could be trying to tell them something they’re not ready to hear – and that lack of readiness can come from my raising a difficult topic, my timing something badly, or just that they’re pre-occupied with something else and so my communication is bouncing off without being absorbed at all.

By the way, when I say “communication” I mean so much more than words. I mean words+intention. Because really, we are creatures who can communicate without words. We do it all the time every day. We start doing it as infants and words get added, but they never replace that unspoken communication. Words are useful to help clarify and to make things more specific, but they are just one part of communication.

I’ve recently been paying a lot of attention to this. And working on getting away from the arguments (or even discussions) about what was said. Because if I’m making that argument, it feels I’m not doing much more that trying to prove that I’m right. And what I really care about is that I’m in relationship with someone and that they understood what I meant to say. Towards this end, I’ve learned that swapping out “what did you hear me say?” in place of “that’s not what I said!” has incredible power to change the direction of a conversation.

I’m starting to recognize the power of letting go of the need to be right. Because in the end, I don’t care about being right as much as actually communicating and being connected.

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“And to me, I leave…”

Posted on February 3, 2011 | Leave a comment

Every day is built on the day before.
That means that every day we inherit the life that was left to us yesterday.
That means that every day I am creating the foundation for tomorrow.

So what if I took this to heart? Then these questions follow:

What do I wish I had inherited from yesterday’s me?
What do I need to do today so that tomorrow’s me inherits the day I want her to have?

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some rules matter. others, not so much

Posted on January 7, 2011 | Leave a comment

I discovered a fun fact about myself vis a vis “rules”:

I believe strongly that rules are important. One of my favorite things is to challenge myself to be as creative as possible without breaking any rules. This is why I got so much joy out of doing the 48 Hour Film Project, and think that cheating on the CNY Treasure Hunt makes it so much less fun. So clearly I’m a fan of rules. As long as they make sense. Actual rules have a purpose that can be explained to me. If they don’t have a real purpose, if the best you can tell me is “that’s the way it’s done,” I tend to discount them as “rules.” (read: ignore) I have a tendency to think of them as “a bunch of words that don’t make sense,” in which case there’s really no rule to break. So then I do what I think does make sense – which might not actually fit within those “bunch of words that I was told was a rule.” Some might see that as breaking rules, but it seems I don’t. I really don’t think of myself as a rule-breaker and take no joy in the idea of breaking rules.

Maybe not a major insight, but I found it curious nonetheless.

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Under the New Years Resolution

Posted on January 5, 2011 | 5 Comments

It’s a few days after New Years. I imagine that most of us are still on our resolutions but they might already be waning. I know I struggle with mine. And I was thinking about a couple of different things: 1) Why can it be so hard to do something that I really want? and 2) Why do I want that in the first place?

I’ll start with the second because that’s what really catalyzed this post. I’m finding that the more I stay conscious of the “why” that is under my “want”, the easier it is for me to achieve it. To do this, I’ve been using an exercise that sounds odd but is remarkably effective: I ask myself over and over the question “What would having that give me that is even deeper and more important?”*

For example, if I had a resolution of “lose 10 pounds” I’d say that, then ask myself the question. The answer could be “I’d feel better about how I looked.” Then I’d ask the question again. The next answer could be “I’d feel more confident.” Then I’d ask again, and so on, until I got to something that felt like it was the root reason – and I often uncover several possible ways to support that deeper desire. If I do those things all together, then I can feel even more successful at any one of the individual resolutions.

…and then we get to the first question, “Why can it be so hard to do something that I really want?” This makes me think of Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational (which I highly recommend). During his TED talk, he discusses this at length. My favorite moment is when he imagines setting the alarm for 6 a.m. with a very clear intention to wake up and go to the gym – then says “the person who hears the alarm go off in the morning is not the same person who set it the night before.”

I find it so powerful to look closely not only at what we want to achieve (New Years Resolutions) but also the subconscious mechanisms that drive both the desire and the reasons that we haven’t managed to achieve it until now.

One of my resolutions is to post more regularly this year, both to become a better resource for you all and to help build up a community that supports all of us. This is the start – and I’m glad I managed to achieve it despite the fact that I hit the snooze alarm a couple of times this morning…

* This is an exercise I learned during TCLT last year.

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Unexpected Community

Posted on November 5, 2010 | Leave a comment

In Georgia there’s a man I never expected to feel connected with, and am happy to learn I was wrong. Bishop Jim Swilley is the pastor of a megachurch, son of ministers, and now father to one. And he recently came out on camera to his congregation.

I spent years participating in and leading LGBT speakers bureaus. For a while it was officially my job to fight homophobia. Swilley’s one-hour talk is among the best I’ve ever heard, particularly because he comes from such a closed community and is speaking directly to people he cares about. He talks about his experiences, his understanding of the bible, his struggle to be himself while facing two incompatible truths (his attraction to men and his calling to preach), and his love for his community. He also calls out those who preach “hellfire and brimstone,” drawing a direct line between their actions and the self-hatred of queer youth that too often leads to suicide.

I thank him for his openness. And I wish him the best as he navigates his way into a new world.

(thank you to Ken Tam for pointing me towards the full speech)

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and so I wear purple today

Posted on October 20, 2010 | 2 Comments

Today many people are wearing purple in solidarity against the bullying which has made life hell for LGBT teens for so long. Some may wonder about the value of such “passive” acts of activism, even if is does count as activism at all. I want to share a story which may help them understand.

When I was in college, I finally figured out that I was bisexual. To understand the environment I was in, you might want to mentally transport yourself back 20+ years, to when Act Up was a nascent group, no major actor had yet come out, and bisexuality was considered a phase.

Recognizing my orientation was huge for me. It made me finally feel whole and explained many confusing thoughts and feelings I’d had since childhood. It is what finally allowed me to stop hating my body so much and allowed me to shake the eating disorder that had plagued me for years. I think it took me so long to figure it out because my attraction to boys certainly helped me to blend in, and it masked my attraction to girls. I also think it took that long because no one was out in my high school – and I had never met a bisexual so in many ways it’s like it wasn’t an option, it didn’t exist.

At that time it didn’t really exist at my college, either. We had a Gay Lesbian Alliance and every support group there seemed to consider bisexual in the same category as “questioning,” meaning: unresolved & not-real. I met one other bi woman and together we formed a group to support bi folks, a group which quickly grew. Once I was out on campus, I was very active, putting my phone number as a resource in the campus directory and leading anti-homophobia groups. I was simultaneously negotiating with the GLA to add “Bisexual” to their name (and their thinking).

Outside of campus, some of my relatives made it eminently clear that they violently hated gays, while others just made fun of them. I was on some crazy emotional ride: feeling fantastic when I came out and was supported by some people on campus, feeling angered by the doubt of others, hurt when I imagined what my relatives’ reactions would be, and fearful that they’d find out.

My college was really progressive and had a week of celebration & education on gay & lesbian issues every year. In my junior year, in the middle of the football field (which was at the center of our campus) we had a very large pink triangle wood sculpture that I had helped to build.

A couple days after we placed the triangle, I heard an urgent knock on my door in the middle of the night. It was sometime after midnight, maybe 2 a.m. I don’t really remember. We were called to an emergency meeting at the GLA right then. When I arrived, I learned that someone had set fire to the giant pink triangle and it burned to the ground. The mental images of burning crosses and hate rallies were impossible to shake. The room was filled with a mixture of rage and fear. It was hard not to mentally spin out into images of violence, questions like “what else are they capable of?” were in the air. It was painful to imagine that one of our classmates had done this, and yet that had to be the case.

And what would be our response? We debated many things that night, trying to nail down a strong response that didn’t incite an even greater and more violent retaliation. We also knew that many of our friends wanted to help, including many straight classmates and teachers.

I am exceptionally proud of our choice that night. We decided to cut pink paper into hundreds of triangles and ask people to put them up in their dorm windows. Volunteers went from door-to-door, asking friends and strangers to join them in a display of solidarity. At first we all felt nervous, but soon many allies came forward and the requests became easier to make. They also lead to really fruitful – if sometimes difficult – conversations, opening up a dialog that continued for days and weeks afterwards. As more and more triangles appeared all over campus, some teachers also decided put them up in their classrooms.

The effect of this on me and others in our community was overwhelming. When I first looked up and saw a wall of windows studded with pink triangles, I broke down in tears. I felt a sense of safety and welcoming, and realized at that moment how great my need was for exactly that feeling. It was like being hugged by strangers, being told I was ok. For those on my campus who had experienced serious bullying and violence because of their orientation, the effect was even more extreme. And it was amazing.

The following year, during the Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual (!) Awareness Week, many people wore pink triangles on their clothing. Their ubiquity made it easier for those who were not yet out to feel comfortable. Some of our straight allies also decided not to clarify their orientation, sitting with whatever feelings came up when others thought they were gay. I found that preconceptions were shaken in ways that were lastingly effective.

And that’s why I’m wearing purple today. Because if anyone out there needs a hug, it’s a young person who isn’t yet out and feels really isolated. I’d like them to know that they’re not alone – and that they don’t even have to ask me for support. I’ll just give it.

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