What Are We Doing? Why Are We Here?
How should the outcomes of our actions shape our understanding of our actions?
A lot of things have been rattling around in my head in the wake of the Uvalde massacre. It feels like an unavoidable touchpoint in this cultural moment, especially for parents.
While the sociopolitical debate about guns is outside the scope of this newsletter, and frankly beyond by expertise or energy level, I do think the debate itself provides a useful entry point for a question we should all be asking ourselves about our work.
That question was posed with some clarity recently by Chris Murphy on the floor of the Senate, which was essentially:
“What are we doing? [...] Why are you here?”
What Are We Doing?
What’s interesting to me about this question is that it can serve as an opening to reconsider the parameters of a conversation or an idea. It invites a kind of perspective-taking about what we’re doing and the tangible effects that our actions are having - an opportunity to lay down the arms of our convictions for a moment and to try to consider things as they are actually occurring.
Said another way: I may know my intentions, I may know what I’m trying to accomplish and how, I may even know who it is I want to become, but have I taken time to consider the tangible effect of what I’m doing? Of what is being created in the world because of my actions?
Oddly, it reminds me of a parable of sorts that comes from Paul Watzlawick’s book The Situation Is Hopeless But Not Serious, that goes like this:
Under a streetlamp there stands a drunk who searches and searches. A policeman comes along, asks him what he is looking for, and the man answers, “My keys.” Now they both search. After a while the policeman wants to know whether the man is sure that he lost his keys here, and the latter answers, “No, not here, back there - but there it is much too dark" (p. 31).
We can get so focused on the thing right in front of us - trying to understand the situation, solve the problem, make the decision - that we default to only applying more of the same method, forgetting that the parameters of the problem may be broader than we’re willing to consider, the problem set may be different than we realize, or the application of our chosen solution may be only making the problem worse.
Why Are We Here?
I’ve been thinking about the common good recently, about what we owe each other in the decisions each of us make, both large and small. Unsurprisingly, I especially think about this in the realm of work. How do my individual decisions about work impact or shape my contribution to the common good? Should the common good inform how I think about my own career?
The reason I named my career coaching practice Career Commons is because I think individuals making better decisions about their work helps bring about more human flourishing. Helping one person get out of a rut or find more energizing work may help lessen the feeling of exhaustion or directionlessness or hopelessness that can seep in when we’re doing something that only takes energy from us. That might allow that person to bring more energy to their family, to their friends, to their community; it might give them the margin needed to help someone else out of a rut, etc.
But I also think this line of inquiry about work - individuals, and especially leaders, interrogating why they do what they do and what effect it has on themselves and those around them - is woefully lacking in our society. That is, I think it should be more common.
Maybe a good place to start is with simple questions that can be quite challenging and revealing when we answer them honestly:
What are we doing? Why are we here?