Ever on & on

You have these people in your life who are always OK.

Nothing seems to ever truly throw them off. Shit happens, as it does to all who walk through life—but for them, it looks like just another step on their path. Perhaps a little wobble but soon enough they’re on their way. They don’t complain. They keep moving. If you ask offhandedly, they’ll answer automatically, “I’m fine.”

And sometimes we are fine. There’s nothing of note to report. We’re dealing with the things, and we’re making our way through.

But sometimes, our silence isn’t a sign of sanguinity in the face of challenge. Sometimes it’s the sign of quiet struggle in solitude.

Why not speak up though?

Because we’re the ones who are always OK. It’s what’s expected of us—by family, friends, self.

Perhaps we’re trying to convince ourselves that we really are OK, this is fine, we’re fine, everything is fine. Sometimes that’s what we need to continue forward.

Or perhaps, whether from imagination or experience, we feel/fear that you don’t know how to react to us not being OK. Will you brush it off? “Oh it’s not that bad. You’ll be fine, you always are.” Or will you view it a radical and disconcerting twist? “You’re always fine! This is completely out of character. You need to manage this.”

Check in on your friends who are always OK. Listen to their silence as much as their words. Because sometimes, like everyone else in this world, we’re not fine. And know we’re not alone when we’re not OK can make the way ahead seem a little lighter.

I felt this tweet from Charlyn Partridge deep in my gut:

Measuring up performances is an unavoidable and often odd thing among humans. Largely it comes down to what we’ve set as the benchmark.

When we’re assessing our own performance, I think many (maybe most) of us fall into one of two traps.

Option 1: We compare ourselves to others while stripping away all context.

Option 2: We compare ourselves to an impossibly flawless ideal self.

In the first, we see what others are accomplishing. How do they do it?! Why can’t I keep up? I’m just not as good as they are. We think this without considering differences in experience, skills, interests, access, and whatever else is (not) going on in their lives and ours.

I think of an author sharing the experience of being interviewed by another writer who expressed her envy of the author’s success. The author, noting that she had been at it a decade longer than the other writer, told her she hadn’t earned the right to envy. Now, I generally think that people have the right to feel whatever they feel (though not to do with that feeling whatever one wants). But it does crystallize the idea that much of what we envy, much of what we compare to, isn’t a difference in ‘natural talent’ but in time and experience (and yes, networks and privilege play roles too).

In the second, we know what the perfect version of ourselves would do under idealized circumstances if everything were to go perfectly to plan. This ignores the reality of our messy lives and messy world. In chemistry, we would do a lot of calculations assuming ‘standard temperature and pressure’—0 degrees Celsius, 1 atmosphere of pressure. But we understood it’s an approximation. Lab settings, even when pristine, are rarely perfect. We might do work to optimize reactions, but often we just needed good enough. And everyone knew at least one story of the reaction or protein crystallization or other lab protocol that only worked at a certain time of the day or year.

So how is it that others come away with such incredibly different assessments? They’re looking at the results and outcomes of our performance. They may or may not know what the intended results were. But they (usually) hold us to such impossibly high standards of process or contextless production. They have the advantage of more objective comparison and focus on what we’re accomplishing—with less interest in whether we took “the way” to get there.

There are times when how we do things does matter (e.g., getting an experiment done but in accordance the appropriate regulatory approvals). But often when we’re judging our work, we overindex on process. Sometimes we need to step outside ourselves and consider what we’re comparing our performance to.

It’s been years since I set New Year’s resolutions. But for several years now, I’ve picked a word to serve as a focal point or mantra for the year. I try to pick a word that serves many facets of my life—professional, physical, social, etc. It goes on a post-it above my desk, so I see it regularly and can keep being drawn back to it.

In 2021, the word was center. It was about establishing practices that would ground me. That would help me show up as the best version of myself I could be each day. That would help keep me from falling hard when inevitable challenges hit. In 2021, I tried some new things (some stuck, others didn’t) and re-established consistency in others. Centering work, of course, is an ongoing practice, so the focus was on taking the actions and creating the rituals that make it easier to weave these threads into my daily life.

Now it’s time for another word. I have some big personal goals for the year already—ultra-endurance events, mountain adventures with the spouse. Professionally, I’m continuing to shape the future of my team’s work. I spent some time in 2021 reflecting on core values and crafted a purpose that I’m excited to explore in the coming months and years. Thinking about a potential theme for the year ahead, I rolled around some different ideas. What do I want it to capture? What do I want to set as a guidepost for the next 12 months? How do I want to grow in the next year?

I did something in 2021 that surprised me. I was supposed to originally do a 50-mile race in September, and I was just thinking about beating cutoffs. That event was canceled due to a storm with potential wintry conditions. We made the most of the weekend anyway and had a lot of fun. I found another 50 miler a couple of months later. My strength and pace on trails has improved significantly in the past year, and as race day approached, I found myself thinking not just about finishing but actually pushing a little for a time. I set an ambitious goal. I missed it by 10 minutes. But there was no disappointment in missing the goal, because I’d just done something I hadn’t thought possible a few months before.

To imagine a stretch goal and then to really go for it… that was something powerful, even if I didn’t quite make it. I recognized the progress I’d made and allowed myself the confidence that came from the work I was doing and the results I was seeing. From some recent reading, I’ve also been thinking more about where I set the bar. Some folks think that, if you’re making every goal you set, you’re not taking enough risks. Now, I think there’s something to be said for setting realistic targets, but I’ve also started to wonder: Do I hold myself back? Could I reach another level, do something that surprises me, if allow myself to set audacious goals?

I realized that my word this year needs to be big enough not only to wrap around the goals I’ve already set for myself. It needs to be big enough to challenge me to reach further. Big enough to give me space to try and maybe fail. Big enough to explore all of who I am, what I can do, and where I want to be.

After sifting through a few options, I finally arrived at the one word for 2022:

Dare. Dare to be ambitious. Dare to set audacious goals that may or may not come to be. Dare to deepen the relationships and shape the spaces to try different ways. Dare to reframe or work through the fear and anxiety and other feelings that keep me from fully chasing some things I really want to do. Dare to find my voice and make it heard when it matters. Dare to dream big, not just for this year but for the years to come.

I know, at this point, it all likely sounds very vague. Some parts I’ve shared with others in different circles, and I expect to write more about different parts in time. To be honest, it feels a little scary put this out there for the world to see (or for the couple of dozen who will read this post). But that’s part of daring too—daring to take an idea that’s in my head and make it known to others, to put myself on the hook to show up and try. Maybe I’ll fall on my face (and that could be quite literally in some of these endeavors), but my hope—and honestly an abiding belief—is that, if I dare to put share my journey with others, my community will be there to help me tend the wounds as necessary, dust off, and get back on the path toward who I am becoming.

Past theme/word of the year posts

2021 – Center

2020 – Grow

2019 – Thrive

2018 – Build