Going the Distance Part 2

Happy Easter!

I made it.

Not perfectly by any means.

But I made it.

Going the Distance

This is me after running 4 miles to the beach with my friend Jeff. It was by far the longest distance I have yet to cover, and it was surprisingly not nearly as hard as I anticipated. Perhaps expecting all-out torture diminished the actual rigor, or perhaps the time I've put in on intervals and shorter runs is paying off. Regardless, upon reaching the ocean I felt a little like Rocky (picture the scene in the montage of his training when he finally makes it to the top of the stairs of City Hall). I did a victory dance of course. And then I ran the 4 miles back home.

My job currently entails interviewing dozens of people each week for seasonal positions, and in the hundreds of interviews I've conducted I've learned a lot about myself and a lot about people in general. One of the most interesting things I've seen candidates do is respond to the information I present to them in ways that can only be interpreted as discomfort, disengagement, and even disagreement. Which is actually fine. I think there are many wonderful people out there for whom this is not the right job. The interesting thing that some of these interviewees do, however, is at the end of the conversation, make very emphatic statements about wanting to do the work. Some even go so far as to say they can't imagine anything they would rather be doing.

Trying to make sense of these passionate claims in light of conduct that clearly contradicts them is a fascinating study in human nature. It has started me thinking on the places in my own life where I believe I want a particular outcome, but my actions or my instincts belie such a claim. And I wonder in moments like this if it's a matter of lacking self-awareness -- do these candidates simply not see the discrepancy that is so obvious to me, and do I have such a disconnect within myself that allows my active will and the more subconscious elements of myself to be at odds in this way? -- or is there something else getting in the way here? Is it pride, perhaps, or fear, or a sense of obligation, the feeling that I should want a particular thing? And I wonder if I slowed myself down enough to look long and hard at these supposed objects of desire, would I be able to see with enough clarity and honesty to admit that I don't (in part at least) really want them? And would I be willing to start the work of bringing my conscious and instinctual responses to the interview of life into alignment?

Palm Sunday

I was a little skeptical of the palms at first. They seemed a strange gimmick, with potential for kitsch. But they turned out to be anything but. Simply put they were amazing. The robed attendants processed, carrying the large boughs aloft, and the less reserved of the Anglican congregation lifted their own smaller branches. And as the organ played and the people sang, I felt for the first time that I understood the wave offerings of old. I felt for the first time that Hosanna was more than a word in a song, it was the song of my heart. And I felt for the first time in a long time the joy of welcoming my King.

And this one's for Sarah

One of the first tricks I learned as a new teacher was how to respond to the inevitable "I don't know" answers students try to get away with. The basic principle is that "I don't know" is rarely a genuine answer and that if you're going to be effective in the classroom, you have to treat that response as the defense mechanism that it is. And over the years, I've gotten pretty good at getting past this particular defense when others put it up.

The irony, of course, is that I do not hold myself to the same standard. I let myself get away with this three-word phrase a lot more than I ever let my students do. In the moment it usually feels genuine (as I'm sure it does for some of my students), but looking back I do see how it is most often a cop-out. At the very least it is a marker that there is something going on that I haven't taken the time to fully figure out. And though I'm generally relentless with my students, I can let myself off the hook way too easily at times.

So tonight I find myself grateful for friends who don't let me get away with the "I don't know", who stick with me, who keep probing, who circle back and back and back again until I finally get to the heart of the matter. The truth is that I don't always know what's underneath the surface, but I get there a lot sooner when people push me to stare down my own uncertainty and process whatever it is that is causing my inability to articulate a genuine opinion. So thanks to those who do this. You help me live my life more fully as myself. And thanks to those who have tried. I know I haven't always made it easy.