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Welcome back, and if you missed part 1, catch up there then come back here. Today I continue a three part series about the role of Self as a Man in Many Roles. I hope you get a nugget, make a connection, or benefit a bit from what I have learned (and suffered) the past few months, and that you find it to be authentic and coming from a very vulnerable place. Let's get right to it!
What I have learned about myself and the world in my 2020 jobhunt:
My humor is mostly a turn off in interviews
The harshest of critics are offering some truth
Hard work pays off, and grows my character and resilience
My experience is deep and wide and respectable in education
The visual, boiled down, is critical in the modern age, and I’m not good at precision and concision..yet.
I have a deep agreement with, (aka, nagging conversation with myself) “Why does it have to be so hard?” As a complaint, not a real question... I’m addicted to easy and I need to quit that drug, but like an addict, there is a very powerful, well worn path in my brain that loves the easy. (Addiction and Grace is a phenomenal book on this by the way)
I went into this job search not yet clear on what I wanted.. Other than to be out of my previous job.
Index and Mutual Funds are good ways to grow wealth because they don’t seek or promise to outperform the market, but rather to track along the same trends over time. Key word, TIME. As in, wait... And it does me no good to look at my IRA multiple times a day...sheesh.
That as hard as feedback from my wife is to take, she loves me and supports me like no other, and is very often right or has an excellent point that is coming from a different perspective.
My personality is really deeply rooted, but it is not my identity. It is my cover that I have learned to use and sometimes to oppose. Persona is a mask, a pose, ego, and a response that all humans develop in response to crisis or trauma (real or perceived, big or small).
Creativity is so totally opposed and resisted… all art deserves far more respect than I have ever given it before this year. Despite seeing credits roll after a movie for well over 40 years, I have not really considered how tough it is to bring a work of creativity into existence.
Antiracism is a key category, not simply not being racist. There is no neutrality in the realm of politics, there is either a focus on individuals or a focus on power and policies and policymakers. How to Be an Antiracist was a very powerful book to help me with this understanding.
There is no capitalism without exploitation. Greed and evil are bases of all societies, and the USA is no different. It is so clear to me that the USA got to where it is via exploitation and enslavement which grew out of racism--a deep belief that some humans are less than other humans, based on skin, language, origin, or several other factors.
We are not to “not care where someone comes from”, rather, we are to be present to each person’s story and to their being. That the opposite of saying, “I don’t care where you’re from…[fill in a blanket statement]”. We should care very deeply and more than we ever have about where people come from. We are bringing joy and love and hope and supporting peace when we see who is in front of us (whether in person or online) with openness, compassion, and some level of pity. Yes, we are to care very much where people are from and what they have to say about issues we agree and disagree with.
My ability to pay attention and to be present is under attack or at least subject to atrophy. This opposed my ability and limits how much my heart and mind and body can take. As a man in many roles I can’t live well if I over nor if I underuse my ability to pay attention.
It is hard to pay attention to unhelpful parts of my personality when I am interviewing and keep them in check, but I am growing. Old habits die hard, and it is hard to sit in the vulnerable place that is a job interview.
I am very uncomfortable, because of my personality with direct, high challenge, highly caring feedback (as in, Radical Candor). I totally understand it, and agree with the need for it, but I have a daunting amount of work to do to increase both my ability to care for (enough to give them radical candor) and to challenge others.
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| Jobhunting as Courage Episode |
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