Perseverance, Discernment and Leaky Holes
I dedicated a lot of energy this past weekend getting myself uncoupled from a vendor I had recently contracted to help with part of my business. From my first conversation with the owner of the company, I had some misgivings but the price was right, and hey, I thought…I can make this work.
And I did make it work. And, the process of making it work left me exhausted and exasperated, and along the way I got jerked around by the owner, who changed policies and pricing on me left and right and communicated with me via semi-coherent e-mails and phone conversations.
Today, after finding a couple independent contractors to take over the work I had previously allocated to this other company, I had the realization that one of my greatest assets is my ability to make things work no matter what. I can think back through my whole life and recall the many times I gave it my all to make something broken become functional, from umbrellas to relationships.
In my work as a chef, I often find myself cooking in other peoples’ kitchens. I’m often at the mercy at whatever equipment they have available, so I’ve become quite adept at using lime juicers to press lemons, finding ways to fashion makeshift lids for pots, and I’ve learned along the way that a good potato masher can do just about anything you need it to.
Having the will to persevere through adversity and less than ideal conditions is a skill that has made me resilient and admired. But my realization this week reminds me it also has the power to exhaust me.
In a recent session, my coach asked me how I am making my life work for me. As I reflect upon this question in light of what’s happened these past days, I realize perhaps my challenge of the moment is to put less emphasis on the “making” and opening up more to identifying what is working, and being willing to let go or refine the things that aren’t aligning, rather than persevering and patching together makeshift solutions.
I feel I am being called right now to really hone my faculty of discernment as I evaluate different pieces of life. I am being asked to be honest about what is really working for me, in the sense it is flowing and easeful, versus what I am working to make work, which is effortful and exhausting.
Through it all, the phrase that keeps coming to me is: Perseverance without discernment robs me of energy.
If we push to make something work at all costs, it’s usually out of some ego desire. We look for ways to make dysfunctional things work because we love the feeling of success we get when we push through and refuse to give in. For some of us, we also activate our predispositions to fix or heal. We seek out the broken things so we can occupy ourselves with making them work, often at the expense of our real priorities.
I recently talked to a prospective client who told me she was on a kick of fixing all the “leaky holes” in her life. I really liked that phrasing, and as I’ve been contemplating my own leaky holes in life, I’m grateful that I have no big gaping holes that threaten to take down the whole ship at the moment. But, I do see many small drips, which taken cumulatively hold power to slow me down. More than anything, these things are all the remnants of some shoddy job I did in the past trying to fill the hole with a less than optimal solution that is perhaps cutting it (and in other cases not), but taking my energy in the process.
As we head into a new year, I’m excited to continue to uncover these holes and find efficient and effective ways to stop them from leaking, once and for all.
