Molested by Obligations

“If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are.  It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint.  And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.”

Tim Kreider in The New York Times

Thus begins one of most thought provoking polemics of modern life I’ve read in ages.  And though primarily aimed at Americans, it could just as well be leveled at us here in SA.

At the risk of insulting you:  if you’ve caught yourself so much as murmuring the above in recent weeks you should be ashamed of yourself.  And if you don’t like my tone that’s fine, I invite you to stop reading and go no further.  But before you go, why not hop across to Tim’s column a read that instead?  Click here.

Still with me?  Thanks.  I heard a very sad story this week.

For a few weeks, a friend of mine had been meaning to have drinks with an old business partner.  Their appointment was on then it was off – mostly due, by his admission, to my friend’s suffocating work schedule.  Finally the two agreed to meet each other for drinks a few Mondays back.  The day in question arrived and with it the news that Gary had died the day before in a Cape Town hotel.  Naturally my friend was gutted and is still trying to deal with the guilt of blowing his friend off so repeatedly.

Why are we so busy?  Why, as Tim Kreider puts it, are we so “molested by obligations”?  If we knew just how much of our God-given capacity our busy-ness is withholding from the world and those around us, surely we would think twice before enslaving ourselves to it?

In writing the bestseller “How the mighty Fall”, Jim Collins spent years investigating the causes behind the collapse of some of America’s most successful businesses.  One factor was what he called “the undisciplined pursuit of more” – or a tendency to grasp for profits in a manner that is discontinuous with the founding philosophy of the concern.  Merck Pharmaceuticals was one such company.  An unrelenting obsession with a rheumatism drug called Vioxx became so overpowering that it eventually diluted the real power of Merck’s purpose-driven philosophy and wrought havoc with its share price.  

Which brings me to one of the most challenging blogs I’ve read in ages…Greg McKeown’s “The Disciplined Pursuit of Less”.  In it he asks:

"Why don't successful people and organizations automatically become very successful?  One important explanation is due to what I call "the clarity paradox," which can be summed up in four predictable phases:

Phase 1: When we really have clarity of purpose, it leads to success. 

Phase 2: When we have success, it leads to more options and opportunities.

Phase 3: When we have increased options and opportunities, it leads to diffused efforts.

Phase 4: Diffused efforts undermine the very clarity that led to our success in the first place.

Curiously, and overstating the point in order to make it, success is a catalyst for failure."

McKeown goes on to describe one exception to this rule - world-renowned oceanographer Enric Sala.  Over the period of several decades, Sala strategically resigned from a number of very good jobs until he'd manoeuvered into the one which most aligned with his strengths and desires – his dream job.

“The price of his dream job was saying no to the many good, parallel paths he encountered”

Having digested the writings of the three authors referenced above, two things are clear:  

Firstly, we are seldom content with “enough” – what’s true of big companies is true of individuals too.  When last did you walk away from an income opportunity because there was actually more value in not working?  If you're like me, it's been a while.

Secondly, we are too easily pleased with “good” jobs, possibly because we have never stopped to dream (as Enric Sala did) that the “excellent” is truly within our reach.  Yet “good” is the enemy of “excellent” - as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “while everything might be permissible, not everything is beneficial…while everything is permissible, not everything is constructive”.

Did the writer of Proverbs 13 have any of this in mind when he spoke about our God given desires becoming a “tree of life”?  A tree which, under the right conditions and with the right attention provides emotional strength, financial strength, wisdom and a mind that’s at ease?

If so, what choices do you need to make to get that tree in order?  

Arrogance or something else?

With the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympics only hours away, I want to reflect on an aspect of the games that’s been getting a lot of airtime lately – the reactions of the medal winners, Usain Bolt in particular.

In the wake of the Jamaican 4x100m victory, I posted some remarkable statistics attesting to the strength and depth of the island’s pool of sprinters.  I was annoyed, (but not surprised) by the ensuing vitriol for the Jamaican team’s celebrations and those of Usain Bolt in particular.  “He’s an arrogant SOB,” quipped one person while someone else sided with Carl Lewis’ speculations that the Jamaicans had been doping all along.

In the wake of a Jamaican 1 2 3 in the 100m dash, Bolt was heavily criticized for taking a camera off a journalist and recording the moment for posterity.  

Picture courtesy of The Guardian

Why are we so quick to label confidence as arrogance?  Though there is a fine line between the two, I believe there’s a clear demarcation.  So let’s look at two Olympic happenings that, at least for me, helped chalk up the boundary.

The women’s 100m hurdles.  American and former world champion Lolo Jones places fourth behind compatriots Dawn Harper and Kelly Wells who manage a silver and a bronze.  Later in an NBC interview the two medal winners express their disgust at how Jones’s defeat is getting more airtime than their second and third place achievements.

US Athlete Lolo Jones.  

Picture courtesy of nationalconfidential.com

It turns out that Jones – a devout Christian and beautiful to boot – has been on the media “A” list for some time now.  Earlier this year, after tweeting that preparing for the Olympics was nowhere near as hard as preserving her virginity, the media spotlight turned on her with an intensity that few other members of Team USA experienced in the run up to the games.  

In the news industry, it’s the newsmen who decide what’s newsworthy, a fact that seems to have either eluded or been spitefully ignored by Jones’ fellow teammates.  Rivalry between sportsmen and women is to be expected – but jealousy over a fellow team member getting more media attention than you – especially when you won a medal – well that’s arrogance of the highest order.

Then of course there’s Usain Bolt and lesser-known Olympian Robert Harting.  Thanks to a few thoughtful journalists, we have an alternative explanation to the allegations of arrogance we’ve been hearing all along.  Of Bolt et al, Tim Adams of The Guardian says the following:

In among all the choreographed celebrations … there has always been just a trace of an emotion that it is hard to imagine the great sprinter owning up to: relief. Relief that his gift remains intact.  Relief that the gods continued to smile on him on this the biggest stage … Few athletes appear to show as much joy in victory as Bolt, but like all the greatest sportsmen you guess he is fuelled equally by a raging fear of defeat…

Though never televised, the reaction of German discus thrower could attract as much criticism as the Jamaican speedster.  Upon winning the Gold medal, Robert Harting ripped off his shirt, draped himself in his country’s flag and began bounding over hurdles which had been set up for the women’s 100m event.  Instead, Tony Manfred of Business Insider described Harting’s reaction as one of “adrenaline fueled passion and child-like joy”. 

Discus Gold Medal Winner, Germany's Robert Harting

Picture courtesy of Business Insider

So, perhaps what some have labeled “arrogance” is in fact a sublime form of relief alloyed with the unfettered and eruptive joy of vindication.  Which leaves one final question:  why does it make some people uncomfortable? 

Are we really that squeamish about success, particularly that of the inordinately gifted individual, the one with whom we could never hope to compete anyway?  Have we forgotten that the Olympics apart from being the rarefied litmus test of going faster, higher and further are a celebration of the human spirit too?

One Facebook friend wrote that the Brits actually loved the Jamaicans for their exaggerated celebrations and said, “their arrogance was not taken seriously”.  

Interestingly, she also said this:  “We Brits find it easier to fail than to show off”.

It was a courageous admission though probably not limited to the Brits.

Living Expansively

It’s been a week since I heard the news of Lukas’ death in Alaska’s Atigun Gorge.  Since Olaf’s final post on the expedition’s Facebook page, the details surrounding the tragic event are now widely known.

As for me, I’ve been reflecting this week on why this story affected me the way it did.   Let me make a confession:  I barely knew Lukas.  My wife and I probably only met him 2 or 3 times and then only “shared” him in a larger crowd.  Though we were Facebook friends, the only contact I had with him in 3 years was to request his secret Lamb shank recipe a few Christmases back.  So why the preoccupation with his death this past week?

It could be that the story bore strong parallels with the movie “Into the Wild” – and a book of the same name written by John Krakauer.  In that poignant case however, the drama surrounded a young college student’s somewhat reckless sojourn in the wilds of Alaska.  But since Lukas was always meticulously prepared for his adventures and already highly experienced in extreme and hostile environments, this could not explain my sadness fully.

Another reason might be that I actually contacted Lukas via Facebook just three days before his death to wish him well for his birthday and to invite him on a trekking holiday in Nepal this September.  If anyone would accept such an invitation it would be he.  But in spite of the uncanny timing, this explanation falls short too. 

A third explanation seems to resonate more deeply.  Not since opening a Facebook account 6 years ago have I seen the medium serving a community more powerfully than it did last week.  It wasn’t just the innumerable and heartfelt condolences on his Facebook wall.  It was the fact that for a few very moving days, people from all over the world; regardless of race, language, gender or creed came together in a messy yet sincere effort to not only console one another but to genuinely assist each other in celebrating the life of a human being who had touched them in so many ways.  If ever there was a sincere and  spontaneous celebration of shared humanity this was it.

Moreover – and I admit I may be reading too much into things – it was as though each post bore the telltale signs of self-examination.  While none should aspire to become a carbon copy of this unique individual, his death served as a blunt yet timely interrogation:  what is stopping me from living as generously, urgently, courageously and expansively as he lived? 

Mindful of the persisting sense of loss I find myself wrestling with a question: Can a man achieve more through his death than he did through his life?  

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

John 15

Troubled as we remain over the fact that he is gone and haunted by the wasteful and potentially avoidable nature of his demise, this tragedy has produced “many seeds”.  Indeed, is not each Facebook update and tear shed a separate sowing?

Who knows what he would say to this from the vantage point of eternity?  For one thing, it is quite likely that he is laughing over what happened, his fall no more to him than it would be to us had we tripped over the cat.   As the Great World War I poet Wilfred Owen wrote in stirring “Spring Offensive”

Of them who running on that last high place

Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up

On the hot blast and fury of hell’s upsurge,

Or plunged and fell away past this world’s verge,

Some say God caught them even before they fell.

For another, he would almost certainly encourage us to reach higher.  As Paul wrote to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 6: 12 - The Message Translation)

I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life.  We didn’t fence you in.  The smallness you feel comes from within you.  Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way.  I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives.  Live openly and expansively!

Or as C.S. Lewis wrote in “The Last Battle” – “Further up and further in!”

Post Script

A lot of the time we tend to define success in terms of how we'd like our epitaph to read.  The Bible is fairly clear that this is like putting the cart before the horse.  Psalm 37 clarifies that we only get the desires of our heart when we "delight in the Lord", when we "seek his face" - when we prioritise the Kingdom ahead of our earthly ambitions.  Viktor Frankl said:

"Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.  For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.  Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success:  you have to let it happen by not caring about it.  I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge.  Then you will live to see that in the long run - in the long run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it"