Who is Confident
The bang of the drum...what do you do? In my attempt to answer what are you looking for? I've run into this "bonus" question countless times: as a student with no vision, as a college grad with no prospects, as a temp with no pride, as a professional with no values...Our genitals may dictate a significant portion of our identities, as demonstrated in Gender Non-Conforming, but "work" becomes the center of MATTHEW's web so often that it's important to understand who/what is beating the drum as I thread and to what End. Now, as a self-proclaimed wanderlust, my intent is to find what Bill Plotkin refers to in Nature and the Human Soul as my sacred dance: "Once your survival dance is established, you can wander, inwardly and outwardly, searching for clues to your sacred dance, the work you were born to do. Your sacred dance sparks your greatest fulfillment and extends your truest service to the world" (258). The problem? Looking back, I can't say that my work, in its many forms, has always been based in love, compassion, and hope. That should be the goal---to habitually live my values in all facets of my being, right? So why has work often functioned as an escape from emotional attachment in the past, and how does this shape MATTHEW's web? Gulp...these questions are piling on from CHICO, bringing me back to my selfish Animal nature and addictive behaviors. It's time to go to work on this complicated web...
From: The Office, NBC
According to a Wall Street Journal article, working follows sleep and TV/leisure/sports as the way most Americans spend their days (those employed full-time had similar working and sleeping hours). Once MATTHEW found a comfortable answer to the question what do you do? he settled into a lifestyle that correlated with this norm. Everything seemed to be moving along beautifully...I found work that involved aspects of my passion, afforded me a comfortable lifestyle, and provided job security. Each dollar raised was a representation of success, determination, and opportunity PLUS I had the added benefit of assisting others in need. In terms of confidence, I felt on top of the world...well, I suppose CHICO did. Wait a minute...MATTHEW was progressing pretty well there and seemed to exemplify a level of confidence in his work...Yes, I understand from the outside that things looked good. Perhaps this was CHICO's best disguise: the cloak of confidence.
It's not uncommon to hear the phrase "confidence is the key to success" when approaching our work. Confidence, as evidenced by the total paralysis of my brain in formulating this journal entry, has been severely lacking from my life, but I've never understood why. Before we begin unspinning, I'd like to share my working definition of "confidence" based on a Psychology Today article titled "The Three Realms of Confidence, Redux" by Alex Lickerman, M.D.: "Confidence always results from a belief—specifically, from one of three particular beliefs that occur in one of three realms: 1) Belief in your competence; 2) Belief in your ability to learn and problem solve; [and] 3) Belief in your own intrinsic worth." Ah-ha, there is the issue...I have lacked one or more of these beliefs despite what MATTHEW was able to accomplish professionally; as a result, I wandered aimlessly in the search for meaning in my work. It will be important to thread these ideas into the web as we crawl along. Attack speed ahead!
The Thread of Competence
From: Superstore, NBC
It's a dog eat dog world and in the battle for survival, the competition to excel and succeed separates the fittest from those who can't measure up. Much like a dog, MATTHEW was a chained Animal following CHICO's "ramming speed" drumbeat to compete in darkness. I dare say...I was confident in my ability to move up the ladder, and I accomplished it by pushing my values to the side and focusing on my selfish needs, so let's begin there...Lickerman's defines competence as the "realms in which you've had training," so based on this, I suppose I could say I'm competent in writing, playing piano, playing volleyball, fundraising, critical theorizing...I could go so far as to say dancing given my 9 weeks of training. Before I get carried away, though, Lickerman barks out: "The repeated experience of success is what instills a belief in your competence...The ultimate in competence—mastery—may or may not take years to develop, but it always takes dedication, discipline, persistence, and a drive to continuously improve." That word looks familiar...mastery. I'll lay an adhesive thread there for now, but first, let's discuss CHICO's competence in competing.
Growing up, I had the privilege and opportunity to participate in a variety of sports and activities thanks to my parents. While these experiences helped me develop teamwork, dedication, and a strong work ethic, these hobbies also promoted a competitive spirit. For example, I remember playing little league baseball in elementary school. Though I was not the best player, I did enjoy playing catch with my parents and going together to the batting cages. One year, while pitching in a game, the opposing coach began yelling at his batter to "Swing at the ball! This kid is throwing rainbows!" I was filled with rage and contemplated throwing the ball as hard as I could at the fence where the coach was standing (I suppressed this urge). At the end of the season, I received an award because I am a millennial and the "Participation Medal" was in full effect, but even as a child, I understood that my efforts were certainly lacking despite what my award said. It's interesting...my generation gets a lot of grief for being of the "Everyone's a Winner" mindset; yet, it's an incredibly short-sighted argument since it fails to consider that kids understand what winning and losing means. For me, the participation awards were as meaningless as they seemed, and as I grew older, all my hobbies became a competition to receive the highest honor. In Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, Robert Jensen references the childhood King of the Hill game to demonstrate a point about domination and subordination: "King of the Hill reveals one essential characteristic of the dominant conception of masculinity: No one is ever safe, and everyone loses something...In a system based on hierarchy, there can be only one person at the top" (27). Since everyone was being recognized, the rise to the top became even more competitive; as such, CHICO buried MATTHEW in activities that would propel me toward becoming "the best" and withdrew from beloved hobbies that CHICO questioned my ability to compete in.
From: Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, Cinema Plus
Fast forward to MATTHEW as a professional: to become the "King of the Hill," I worked 60+ hour weeks and sought out new duties in order to get ahead of my peers, resulting in some of my colleagues being pushed off the hill altogether. I became competent in being a ruthless competitor, but that is all part of surviving, right? Although I exceeded my expectations and set myself apart from the pack, it still wasn't enough for CHICO because I wasn't winning all of the top honors. Returning to Lickerman's "mastery," I'm reminded of the use/abuse cycles I discovered in Sensuality. He shares that "once you've achieved [mastery], the confidence it brings is unconscious and largely unassailable," yet, that seems inconsistent with the competitive nature of the workplace since a master requires submission from the other. With dogs eating dogs, is it possible to truly find confidence in my competence, regardless of its form, when it is under threat of someone else achieving more toward their survival (and to the detriment of my own)? I turn to Julia Cameron and The Artist's Way for an answer: "Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty...Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, no mastery. A mystery draws us in, leads us in, lures us. (A duty may numb us out, turn us off, tune us out)" (21-22). In CHICO's drive to become a master, I struggled to detach from my emotions as rage, jealousy, and frustration replaced love, compassion, and hope. In other words, MATTHEW was a giant mess, and it was time for CHICO's web of competition to be dismantled; however, embracing the mystery of work produced new challenges that required more than just competence...
The Thread Of Learning and Problem Solving
Some days, I cried uncontrollably before/after work because I feared being my authentic self with individuals I respected and admired. Other days, I criticized my peers for being incompetent, unreliable, and short-sighted because of my own insecurities and need to be "the best." My complaints about the pressures and demands I experienced became the cornerstone of my conversations with friends and family, making work even more prominent in my life but in a way that separated me from my values. Who was this monster that seemed hell-bent on getting ahead at the cost of my well-being and the well-being of others? Lickerman sniffs out an answer: "First, you must learn to recognize any internal voice that tells you that you can't (what's called a "devil" in Nichiren Buddhism) for what it actually is: an unhelpful idea that only lives in your head." CHICO has been recognized for the devilish clown that it is, but why were my relationships at work the cause of so much inner turmoil? In the fight for survival, CHICO's competitive spirit lacked trust.
From: Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, Cinema Plus
If you have a few minutes (30 minutes to be exact), I strongly suggest playing "The Evolution of Trust" (EOT) that asks two very important questions at the outset: "Why, even in peacetime, do friends become enemies? And why, even in wartime, do enemies become friends?" In case you don't make it through this insightful activity, you quickly learn how toxic distrust is, particularly for those who seek to cooperate. As the activity states: "In 1985, when Americans were asked how many close friends they had, the most common answer was 'three.' In 2004, the most common answer was 'zero.' We now have fewer friends across class, racial, economic, and political lines, because we have fewer friends -- period." If I consider the amount of time we spend at work in combination with the competitive environment in which we work, this seems like an obvious result; yet, Gallup asks another important question in their Employee Engagement Survey: "Do you have a best friend at work?" What?!? Yes...Gallup, which has "spent decades working with thousands of organizations around the world and studying the survey results from more than 25 million employees," recognizes that "When strong engagement is felt in a workgroup, employees believe that their coworkers will help them during times of stress and challenge. In this day of rapid-fire change, reorganization, mergers, and acquisitions, having best friends at work may be the true key to effective change integration and adaptation." So does that mean that confidence isn't the end-all, be-all of success in the workplace? It would seem, based on this information, we need to have more confidence in our ability to learn from our peers and problem solve this communication breakdown; this is especially important when factoring in the political and societal barriers we currently face.
When I consider what it means to have a best friend, I think about the meaningful bonds I've developed, particularly when I felt comfortable being authentic and vulnerable. Building these relationships at work, though, adds a layer of complication. How much do I share, especially when my differences (race, age, gender, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, political leaning) separate me from my colleagues? What is the boundary between personal and professional? Chasing my tail back to the EOT activity, I'm reminded of what can happen when there is a breakdown in communication. Throughout my career, I have shared details about my personal life with colleagues, and the response typically falls into one of three categories: 1) the openness is reciprocated, which encourages more vulnerability and builds stronger bonds; 2) the openness is not reciprocated, which raises questions about the fine line between personal and professional; or 3) the openness is used against me, which discourages my vulnerability in future exchanges (and reinforces CHICO). As evidenced in the EOT, acting as a "Copycat"---or following the Golden Rule---seems to be the safest in terms of longevity, but that ideal falls outside my values as I don't intend to reciprocate if the response falls into the third category. How can I adjust my expectations so that I'm confident trusting others with my authentic, vulnerable self when I feel betrayed, though?
The Thread of Intrinsic Worth
From: Parks and Recreation, NBC
In the age of social media, it's difficult to navigate intrinsic worth. Have you ever shared something personal only to have your post not be liked, shared, or commented on? Most likely, it took courage to be vulnerable with your network, so when this act was not recognized or praised, courage was replaced with disappointment and confusion. Grades, promotions, raises, and other extrinsic motivators distract from the connection to our intrinsic worth and strengthen the competitive spirit instead. Lickerman helps dig up how this impacts confidence: "Unfortunately, even those of us with the healthiest sense of self-worth tend to build it upon shaky foundations...Looks fade, weight is gained, money is lost, fame turns to infamy (or worse, apathy), people stop liking you, goals remain unattained, you retire (and stop living a contributive life)...Genuine self-confidence exists in a vacuum, requiring no one of lesser worth to be near it to justify itself. The best way, in my view, to build that kind of self-confidence is to fall in love with your own life." Of course, just like I discovered in (Endless) Love, the foundation of confidence should be based in self-love so that we don't rely on superficial means for validation; however, recent events suggest how dangerous this belief can become if not paired with compassion and hope.
For example, what happens when I, a (Proud) Gay Male, and a white nationalist both love our lives and feel the need to protect our livelihood? As evidenced by what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, the results can be deadly, despite the level of confidence and connection to God either of us might feel. This is the outcome of the competitive spirit: only one identity is able to rise to the top, and the others are marginalized and oppressed. White, heterosexual men have maintained their King of the Hill status for centuries, and the threat of others rising to the top jeopardizes the basis of their masculine identities. Unfortunately, the beat of the drum has us all racing toward a terrifying end as our work directs us away from our innate nature (based in love, compassion, and hope) due to the distrust we experience on a daily basis. Cameron finally gets tails wagging when she shares that "It is only when we consciously learn to link power and light that we begin to feel in our rightful identities as creative beings...when we move out on faith into the act of creation, the universe is able to advance (14; 2). By connecting with our "artist child"---the playful, joyful, and non-judgmental being within us all---we are able to access our deepest passions and overcome core negative beliefs that separate us from ourselves, those around us, and the higher power.
From: Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, Cinema Plus
This is where I (finally) find my confidence, despite the tragedies and resulting heartache experienced the world over. Though CHICO has been battling against me in an effort to make MATTHEW submit to his former hyper-competitive, survival-focused self, I finally see how the threads of power and light interweave through my creative expression. Plotkin frees me from CHICO's leash when he shares that "he has the opportunity to go out on a limb and launch his wildest artistic projects. In addition to the immediate rewards of unfettered creativity, those projects will also bring him face-to-face with precisely the symbols, impulses, places, and people that will most effectively intensify his journey of descent to soul. They will open the door to experiences that will undermine his old story and reveal the passions, images, and greater stories that wait in his depths" (Plotkin 289). If we stop barking at each other and instead encourage the creative energy that flows through us all, then we are able to overcome the barriers that distract from living a fulfilling life and confidently step forward as a unified front. On that note...it's time for some questions:
How do you express confidence inward and outward? How do you react when your confidence is threatened by others?
How does your work interweave with your creativity? Do you allow yourself to be completely vulnerable through your creativity?
How do you encourage your loved ones when they experience setbacks at work or through their creative expression? How do they encourage you?
I'm right on top of that,
Who (?)