Early last month, while reading the latest entry in a series of poignant observations set forth by a dear friend, I surprised myself by finding the sudden urge to take up blogging. I shared my desire with that dear friend Lindsey, and she has spent the last few weeks curling her encouragements, with a dash of pressure, around my initial reluctance. Now, thanks to her encouragement, with no agenda and no manifesto, I am willing to take the risk and take part in a little game.
Lindsey, in her blog, introduced a clever little internet game, called Loquacitas (meaning something which a scholar of Latin could better illuminate, but I’ll gloss it simply as “walking the talk”) in which a group of intrepid and innumerable (well there are at least 5 now) internet yahoos with keyboards and far too much zest for the poetic, will each week pick from a pool of over 60 verbs and try to incorporate that word into their life both directly and intellectually. This sense of agency wooed me. Taking a hard look at your life, at your core values, and then putting them out for the rest of the public to see is a big step, and one that I think is essential for leading a satisfied, meaningful life. So I bought the subscription, and I’m ready to give this new press a try.
I am coming in mid-stride, but here it goes. This past week’s Verb of the Week (or VOW), was Heighten.
Being from Colorado, I am no stranger to elevation. We sit at an altitude that makes rival football teams crumble, lack of oxygen taxes the brain and makes any sort of high-minded legislation look like a good idea, and turns Olympic athletes into champions (regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation, Mr. Putin), so the lofty aim of defining this word in a way the presents some meaning for my life seemed extremely straightforward. It was, in fact, daunting in the end. What in my life needed a boost up? What parts of my life were at a low point? By most definitions, I was feeling the effects of a “high.” Married, proud sponsor of two new kittens, employed, engaged in a number of hobbies, I am generally labeled as a happy person, a reputation that by its very nature seems a blessing, but is in truth a vice, a ring of chains that binds you to certain expectations. Excessive happiness, in traditional Chinese medicine, is perceived as a disease.[i] It can be a mask for many insecurities as much as an analgesic for the occasional pains of life.
It was at about this juncture in my thinking that I perceived the rut I was in and scrambled to avoid the smack of the runaway wagon wheel barreling down its track. Over the last few weeks, I have been suffering from a lack of direction, a general absence of purpose that seemed completely insurmountable. I suppose it was inevitable, a project I have been working on for two years drew to a close, and with an abundance of time to call my own, I found that while I entertained illusions of being in control of my duties the truth was that I relied so much from requests from the staff I supervised that I lost much of my purpose and was sort of floundering. Then, I applied the verb of the week to my profession; I heightened my perspective.
I travel often for work, or at least in an average month I do, and so I find myself often drifting between trips waiting for the next set of needs to come along. Last week, it occurred to me how thoroughly dangerous that is because without working ahead, I wound up with more and more work I needed to do even after I got home. I value the time I have at home, with my wife Niccole, and so as this became more and more common I realized that it was something I had to stop.
I know I am not the only one of my colleagues in this situation. It’s an old trope, and it happens no matter your field – those unfortunates in your department who let their work define them, and, as the David Allen Company[ii] would put it, don’t define their work. So I cut it out. I caught up on my assignments in the office, read all of my e-mail, and put off what I couldn’t take care of. I wrote out an agenda for everything I wanted to cover on my recent trip to St. Paul, took a look at the documents and material I needed to cover, and wrote myself a road map through it all. Was it perfect? No. Like anything involving a team, the success was subject to the collaborative effort of everyone involved, but we accomplished a lot. I was traveling with a group, so I left them to plan their work, trusted them to take care of their duties, and I tried to anticipate their needs so I could provide them with guidance without needing too much time to prep. I wasn’t left with a pile of work at the end of each day, and I could comfortably shut off my laptop at the end of the night and explore the city, for that is an opportunity I have never shirked. I salivate at the chance.
I set out determined to heighten my knowledge of the drearier half of the Twin Cities. I scoured Yelp & TripAdvisor, I checked out an authentic local Japanese restaurant, tasted the fare at a local coffee shop, and strolled through a charming park at dusk. The second evening, I wound up at a local pizza shop, The Black Sheep, a sheep shop well-vetted on the internet gourmand circuit. So where did it leave me? For all my planning, I caught on to the fact that I was suddenly alone, in a city I’d never visited before. Sitting in a bar called The Black Sheep, I started to wonder if I hadn’t somehow fully extricated myself from any sense of community. I became hyper-aware of the man sitting alone at the bar: late-fifties, a bit disheveled, sipping on a lukewarm beer he’d apparently been nursing for a while. He was talking aimlessly with the girl behind the counter, black-haired and dressed simply, who was only half paying attention to him. It became easy for me to judge at first glance. I pegged him for “one of those,” the sad bastards who don’t have anything to do but sit at a local bar and pretend that they’re friends with the staff. Then the gentleman got up and left, and I was all alone with the staff. I started to worry I was becoming him: a black sheep of my own. I recounted that I’d shut myself off a bit recently. I recalled claiming to have dinner plans as my carpool driver pulled in to the hotel. I had retreated into the old habits of reading to avoid conversation, closing my office door and putting in headphones. Disappearing after someone sought me out to ask a question, even if it only was, “how are you?” No wonder I’d been feeling listless and aimless. After all, it’s easy to lose yourself in meaningless tasks if you don’t have anyone to hold you accountable. What I heard following this dreary soliloquy astounded me. My waiter came back in from lassoing the chairs on the patio, and struck up a conversation with the black-haired bar tender.
“You didn’t notice,” he said.
“What?” she replied. He pointed to his head. “Oh! Nice haircut. Is it new?”
“I got it a week ago.” He chided her in response.
“Oh, come on, you can’t expect me to notice every little thing.”
“Mr. X noticed,” he said, indicating the recently departed sad bastard, “and he only comes in once a month.” Looking for friends, I thought, not a sad bastard.
It struck me that perhaps I was really missing companionship, and not purpose. Where were my peers? Why travel in a group if you end up wandering deserted city blocks alone? Wow, Bob, you’re exciting, I thought. I resolved not to let it get me down. I rented a bike and made another stop, a bar noted for having the most extensive beer list in town, I practiced solo philosophy a bit longer over a pint, pecked away forlornly at my keyboard for a while, and then returned to the hotel.
The next day, on the way to the airport, I plied my colleagues with a simple question: “What did you have for dinner last night?” “Room service,” came one answer, “I didn’t eat; I just forgot” another. I realized how close we are to solitude, all the time, and how utterly unnatural it seems. “What did you do?” came the vaguely curious, obligatory refrain. I shared: a pizza shop, a stroll, a bike ride round the empty streets, and the finest brews Belgium can safely ship. My colleague looks stunned. “Wow, Bob, you’re exciting.” Not a hint of irony in her voice. High praise for one night’s work, and now is my turn to feel a strange loss. At that moment, I vow to elevate my participation in the efforts of my peers. I vowed to have high standards for what I seek for fulfillment and for the quality of work that I produce, and mostly I vowed to dream.
Finally back in the office, I wrote down everything that I was working on, took a tally, and determined just how much free time I had in a work day. By looking down at the whole picture of my responsibilities, I want to take stock of my energy surplus and prevent my work life from seeping into my home life by planning my time in advance. So I can free up my time, accelerate the excitement of my private life, to elevate the experience of partnership in my marriage, my office life, and my hobbies. To be worthy again and again, of that little paean “Wow, Bob, you’re exciting.”
My Audience Is Me 