I’ve been suspecting for a while now that I may not be cut out to be a very professional adult.
This suspicion was confirmed two weeks ago when I got fired from my job at a civil rights organization.
To be fair, I had known for a while that this breakup was basically inevitable. Aside from our ideological differences in how we viewed social change (a story for another time), I was just not very good at conforming to a culture of professionalism – my emails weren’t formal enough, my mannerisms weren’t careful enough, my methods of bringing people together weren’t conventional enough. And I wasn’t willing to stop being casual and upfront and unorthodox, because those are the things I like best about myself. (I’m also really good at putting on a pair of pants while driving, but that is a skill confined to a more specific situation.)
So when they broke the news to me, the emotion that immediately flooded my body was… relief. And then a kind of joy, which may also have stemmed from receiving a very nice severance package. But it also meant that I had a chance to start over – to do something new with my life. Something that nourishes my soul instead of crushing it.
But what is that next thing?
For the first time pretty much ever, I’m at a crossroads that splits off into seemingly infinite paths. People react very differently to the idea of the unknown, I think. Some people hate the unknown and do everything they can to avoid facing off with it.
Some people kind of thrive on it.
At first, I thought I would just take on another job in civic engagement, getting people to vote and engage in the political process. After all, that’s what I’ve been doing for all of my adult life, and there are some bad ass organizations out there whose political ideologies align closely with my own. Plus, we like each other. Plus, they would pay me a lot more. Plus, I could be myself, for the most part.
It was so tempting, and so easy to just continue down that path….
And yet.
Is that what I’m truly meant to do?
What do I really want?
It’s amazing how difficult it is for me to answer this question. It’s so simple, yet so utterly complicated.
I decided to take a crack at it.
The first challenge was to ignore what everyone else around me was doing – to let go of whatever kind of shiny image I want to convey to others of how successful and adult I am. There’s an enormous amount of societal influence that pervades all of our every day decision making:
I think a part of me was scared to not continue down the civic engagement route because I was worried about what people would think if I left it.
But the more I talked about my life path dilemma with people, the more I realized that the truth is that no one else really cares about what I decide to do with my life. Everyone just wants me to be happy / is too busy being concerned about their own life to judge mine. It’s a very nice realization to have – kind of like a warm, fuzzy blanket of security.
The second challenge was to resist the urge to jump on the first possible option I saw post-civic-engagement-rejection.
For me, that option happened to be being a tour manager for a traveling activist experimental rock opera caravan ship.
Occupy Wall Street meets Cirque Du Solei, the New York Times explained to me helpfully when I combed the Internet in search of a few more reference points.
My friend was a performer for the caravan a while back and told me about the position. 2 months of traveling and living with 20 other cast and crew on a pirate ship, spreading our artistic message up and down the coast of B.C. about climate change and cultural genocide.
So edgy. So cool. I interviewed with the captain of the ship and was about to pack my bags for Canada when a conversation with a friend gave me pause.
“Should I do it or not?” I asked him.
“It’s never a question of should you do something or should you not do it,” he replied. “There are always more options available to you.”
I thought for a bit. And thought some more.
“Why is it so hard to imagine the possibilities?” I said after a few moments of silence.
“Because when you’re hungry, the first food you see is like ‘this is the best food ever! But you have to treat it like an appetizer. There are more courses coming your way.”
So I did some more reflecting.
And I figured out that I want….
….to do more reflecting. I want to take some time to process everything that’s happened in the past year and a half. To think deeply about my values and my vision. To picture different scenarios of how my life could go from this point on and how I would feel in those various situations. It’s a huge privilege to be in this position where I can afford to be intentional, and you know what they say about privilege – use that shit for good.
I read this quote the other day in a book that seemed very relevant:
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
When I read that, it felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. For people who care about making the world better, it’s easy to get caught up in being completely driven by mission; by what we think is most needed in our current political climate (sorry, I know we reallllly need to retire that phrase – it’s like the least sexy/most boring way ever of saying how fucked we are). But we can’t help free other people until we free ourselves. When we do the thing that makes us feel alive, that’s when we’re at our most effective and inspiring and impactful. I hope this is the case, anyway.
So, I won’t be hopping on a pirate ship anytime in the near future, unfortunately. But that’s okay. I actually don’t even like ships all that much.
I do like writing, though. I think I’ll start posting more things, on here – hopefully we won’t have to wait until birthday number 28 for the next one!
