Thoughts On Getting What I Always Wanted

Every so often people find my old blog, Stay of Execution, and write to me about it.  Mostly I don't check that email address, and I'm not very good at writing back.  But I got an email a week or so ago about this post, in which I pondered the question "What Am I For?" 

Reading it, five years later, I was struck by the fact that I'm now doing exactly what I said I most wanted to do: 

And then what welled up was this: What I really want to be for is helping people be themselves.... I feel most alive when I'm taking a risk or reaching out to somebody or having an experience that feels authentic.  And I feel most proud when I help somebody else have such an experience.   When, through talking with me, they feel safer and more able to be themselves.  I like it when people say, "I'm so glad you said that, because I was thinking the same thing but I thought I was the only one."  Or when I can see them make the decision to trust me with a confidence, and the relief when the response is curiousity and empathy and not disgust or rejection.  Or when I introduce people who are able to unlock one another in a way that I can't. 

So today I had 15 such conversations.  6 were scheduled student appointments, 8 were walk-ins, who came to my office hours between 2 and 4, and one was a phone call I squeezed in at the end of the day with an alum who's trying to change to a job that suits him better.  We talked about hopes and dreams and clarity and choices.  We talked about what to do next, what was exciting and what was scary.  I ripped apart cover letters and personal statements, and said, "you can do a lot better." Besides these 15 conversations, I spent an hour at a student affairs luncheon listening to a student panel discuss spiritual life on campus, and I met with a colleague for an hour talking about ways we can support professors writing letters of recommendations for our students.  Fascinating conversations, chock-a-block, without a moment to stop between one and the next.  

I knew that I wanted to switch from being paid to be sharp and clever, which was how I earned my keep as a lawyer, to being paid to be warm, curious, and nice.  But one interesting thing about getting paid to be warm, curious, and nice is that it means at the end of the day I don't really want to talk any more.  Tonight my brain is all full, thank you, still turning over the people I met today and what I learned about them, wondering how I might help.  On weekends I want to read books, I want to go outside, I want to exercise, I want to watch television, I want to cook or draw pictures.  But I don't really want to make new friends, or delve more deeply into the hopes, dreams, and disappointments of my other friends.  I don't even want to evaluate or articulate my own life, which is why I haven't had much to say around here lately.  I'm starting to conclude that doing this work means I'm less warm, less curious, and less nice in my personal life (and probably less sharp and clever, too).  

Comments

[Noel]

You should learn to program in your free time. It seems it would suit the new you perfectly.

Let me know if want a hand getting started.

[Noel]

"*you* want a hand"

Programmers care as much about proof-reading as they do about others' emotional lives.

[PG]

I guess my comment to that post turned out to be roughly accurate ;-)