The Way You Do Anything

Author: Marlena Hanlon May 22, 2016 1 Comment

I’ve been working on a project recently which I sort of fell into, as is often the case, just by showing up. Some parts of it I like a lot, others I could do without, but what I have been most frustrated by is the lack of collaboration and support by my program colleagues. Conceptually, this is a shared asset being developed, and it represents the intention and foundation of our program.

Last night, one colleague stated that she admired my passion for the project. That sounds like a compliment, but really, the statement was not about me in any way; the subtext was about her consistent failure to contribute, which stems (apparently) from her disinterest in the project.

These are two perspectives which I encounter a lot. First, a perception that I am highly invested in whatever I’m doing, and second, that a great many people base their level of engagement on some set of external circumstances being met – or not.

My response followed: “I don’t necessarily have a great passion for the [project]. Instead, I believe in the axiom that how you do anything is how you do everything, and so I approach this project with the focus and intention that I would put into anything to which I’ve committed. My passion is an expression of me, not my relationship with the project. In my experience, the only way anything can be known is by doing, and so I cannot know anything about [this place] if I do not live in it, exist in it, and work in it in ways which build a part of it.”

I might have also said that those whose passion is at the mercy of external circumstances can never be master of their choices – and perhaps worse, may never find their true passions. Why? Because we don’t know what we don’t know, and often crucial knowledge is revealed to us only once we’ve taken a first step in any direction. I can’t always leap from “A” to “G” – and it may be at such a distance and meandering that I can’t even see that G exists from A, anyway. Often, I find G only because I stepped into A, which led to B, and so on. I had to start peeling layers to get to depths that were simply impossible to garner through voyeurism.

True engagement is being in “it”. In the discomfort. In the uncertainty. In the tension. In the challenge. And also in the joy, and the surprise, and the creation. We’re all working with mostly incomplete information, but some sets of information are more complete – and that approach to wholeness comes only with an understanding that the unknown is the abyss we must all enter if we have any desire for real transformation and growth.

And so while I watch my cohort try to tamp down the disorientation which comes with occupying new territory through trying to control the circumstances – bullying the teacher, changing the curriculum, cutting the scope, abstaining from the environment, cherry picking the work group, blowing off the readings, whatever – I just think, Huh. Well, that missed an opportunity.

Dive in; lean in; take the leap. The world has been waiting for You to show up.