“Shame and fear would seem to be stealing the show.”
One of the steps toward a solution is to discern the tools you have to combat the problem.
In this case, those tools are courage and faith — courage to combat the fear, faith to combat the shame.
I actually stumbled on the second part. Doesn’t pride combat shame? Um, no. It’s faith, folks.
Having made it this far, I’m left asking where those sentiments went. I used to have them in considerable abundance.
Inversely, why do I — why does anyone — hold onto shame and fear? They’re not worth much, once they’ve done their job of teaching you to stay out of trouble.
That leads to an even more fundamental question: what are the fear and shame protecting me from?
Fear
When I wind up my fears into a big, continuous ball of string the product suggests that I’m afraid of people — oh, that again! — afraid they won’t understand, afraid that they’re too selfish or insecure to do the right thing, and so on. The cold truth is that I start people with two strikes, and an awful lot of them are perfectly willing to oblige the third.
I wonder how many of them read my nonsense off of my body language, and oblige the third strike on purpose just so they can get me out of their way. That’s how I would do it.
When I keep up that honesty I grasp that I’m exercising a conditioned response, not an inherent one.
The key to halting conditioned behavior is one part discipline, and more parts replacing the unhealthy conditioned response with a healthy one.
My unhealthy habits with respect to my low opinion are:
Keeping my bullshit detector dialled to the highest possible gain — and responding to the roar of signals without much in the way of consideration.
Barely going out and, when I do go out, going to the same old places as if I’m on autopilot.
Constant worry about what I ought to be doing, to the point that it destroys much or all of the enjoyment I get out of time away from my desk.
Comporting myself under the assumption that attractive and interesting people have better or more interesting things to do than hang out with me… which applies to women especially, but generally without respect to my gender preferences for social activity of any particular kind.
Finally, even if those habits don’t sink me, I routinely attempt self-sabotage by way of putting my foot in my mouth.
Mmmyeeeaaahhh. That’d be great.
Discipline
How, then, do I replace those habits?
Cut people slack, and frame my visceral response to impending bullshit in terms of time likely to be wasted in the near term rather than running away thoughtlessly.
Get myself out there in front of new people, even if the prospect makes me shiver. Unlikely destinations will be a waste of time on a frustratingly regular basis, but that’s just too damned bad. You work with what you have, not what you want.
Put time in every day toward stuff that needs to get done, regardless of how it makes me feel, so that I can approach time out in the world with some degree of calm.
Ask more questions of new people — and stop taking odds in my head on their likely answers.
The latter two of these “new habits” are especially tough.
A weak link
My most basic challenge is this: asking for things, up to and including the opportunity to work, makes me feel on-the-spot and deserving of criticism as a matter of course, except perhaps when I have something to offer in return that’s of far greater value than what I’m asking. Like anyone who isn’t suffering from an acute personality disorder, the notion of asking for things I haven’t obviously earned makes me a little anxious. (Well, more than a little.)
…That conditioned response comes from a heap of pretty old baggage that can be summarized as “I grew up without any rational understanding of interpersonal boundaries
The Egg and the Chicken
The Egg and the Chicken —by Ben Henick, 22 July 2010
All three pieces are a kick. Reading them in rapid succession, as I did yesterday afternoon, is a kick in the guts. The article about jobs-in-general particularly evoked from me a visceral response.
Rich get richer, poor get poorer
The sense of entitlement to profit that I raised a few days ago is evident in every talk about compensation I’ve heard about, or participated in, in the past several years. It seems to me like the vast majority want labor for the cheapest they can possibly obtain, while remaining content to throw handfuls of money at senior management and holders of equity — even ones who, as it turns out, contribute little or nothing.
It always seems like the same old story: hire somebody with the basic minimum of proven ability in order to get away with paying them as little as possible, train them up to the minimum needed by the organization, fire the ones who don’t take comfortably to that scheme at the instant they’re identified, and work the others to the bone until they burn out.
I believe that on some level, most people recognize that this is going on. However, I struggle to understand why. It seems axiomatic to me that people who feel valued will work harder, yet the trend moves toward every possible effort to remind people that they’re replaceable and ought to get the best out of things while they can.
Compassion vs. sociopathy
The only fact that adequately explains this prevailing state of affairs is broad, unwitting subscription to the system cobbled together from the amoral rants of a mildly nutty Russian emigré. On balance that would not be so bad, except that like that ethos’ nemeses — Communism and Christianity — “Objectivism” works a hell of a lot better in theory than in practice.
I see two deep flaws with this ethos, deepening my my confusion. First, we can’t all be Howard Roark; lots of us lack the temperament requisite to that outcome. As much to the point, if we all could have and act upon that power, civilization as we know it would rapidly descend into barbarism. One man’s clear thinker is another’s cold-hearted sonofabitch, and the latter type is awfully good at inducing conflict.
Second, human beings possess and act upon compassion compulsively; the ones who habitually refuse or fail to do so are (rightly) called sociopaths. We all recognize that the chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and communities tend to raise the minimum when given the chance. Cutting loose that weak link instead… goes a bit far.
Meritocracy
The happy finish of the labor market’s neo-Nietzchean race to the botom can be found in two virtues that are compatible with all of the belief systems in play: honesty and fidelity.
As it stands, the realities of social (im-) mobility leave some with first-class tickets, and consign the rest to steerage barring both outstanding luck and superlative effort. Furthermore, there are no guarantees that anyone who manages to climb their way out of steerage won’t be shoved back down by some vindictive asshole.
Rewarding honesty and fidelity in the workplace — and penalizing those who lie, cheat, and habitually cover their asses — would go a long way toward making the labor market a better place for everybody.
We have the technological capacity to discover and promote out of steerage quickly the ones who’ve earned it, as a matter of course. We can do the reverse for those who feel most inclined to rest on their laurels. Why don’t we?