Several people asked if I was going to post photos anywhere online, during the trip. I said no, and explained that in my 25 years as a journalist, even having to take my own photos for stories took away from my ability to be fully present where I was; able to immerse myself in an experience instead of thinking about how best to record it. To also focus on posting those images real-time would mean I’d have one piece of my brain back home at all times. Which means I’d miss a lot, including the focus, open-mindedness, and attendant opportunities for unexpected wonder and joy that come from being dis-connected from the noise of daily routine and life. 

Focus is perhaps the most important part of that equation. New places and people and experiences can teach us a lot, but not if we’re always focused on ourselves: how we look, or what we’re going to show people back home. We need to look outward; connect, question, listen, look, and ponder what comes at us if we are to be changed by it. And that, to me, IS the point of exploring or traveling the world. To be changed. To see new perspectives, and experience and perhaps even understand things we have not encountered before. 

Not that I haven’t ever taken a beach vacation just to chill and recharge. And I did take photos of us on the trip – all three of us love exploring the world, and I’ve found that when life gets hard, it’s good to have touchstones that help me remember the good times and laughter we’ve shared as a couple and as a family. Those smiles matter. 

But what really struck me on the trip were the questions, thoughts, and sometimes-dizzying shifts in perspective that our travels encouraged (and, in some cases, forced) us to confront. Just a few:

1. Wadi Rum, Jordan 

I’ve spent a lot of time in the southwestern and western deserts of the U.S. But the red sand and sandstone stretches of Wadi Rum in Jordan are far more wild, and less populated. Other-worldly enough that it made complete sense to us to discover that the movie “The Martian” was filmed there. Water is found in trickles, and yet Bedouins have lived and traveled there for centuries. How and why? The why is easier: it’s where they’ve always lived. It’s home. Same reason, I imagine, some people feel attached to the Mojave Desert of California, as barren and cold and blazing hot as that is. Of course, if you don’t control better land, your tribe doesn’t always have other options. And yet they survived here! Proof that humans are amazingly adaptable. But did there used to be more water? And therefore more options for goats or camels to graze? How has the world and the climate changed – not just in this century, but across time? As we sipped tea in a very hot, if shady, Bedouin tent, we were inspired to both ask questions and research the region’s history on our phones (modern travel!) And we learned that a trade route ran through here, and yes, there used to be more water. But still a dauntingly challenging existence, even with tourist money to supplement what the land offers today.

2. Petra, Jordan

Petra, Jordan, one of the 7 new wonders of the ancient world, is a mystery surrounded by an enigma, wrapped in a conundrum. Especially when you explore it with a son whose college major was ancient history with a background in archeology. Impressive ruins, for sure. With the remains of a columned street, amphitheater, and temples of a Roman city plunked down on top of a far more ancient … something. Gathering place? Sacred site? Winter home? Nobody really knows. Look at the detailed carvings in the temples carved into the rock walls of the canyon. Exquisite. Corinthian columns and figures and intricate designs. But the Nabataeans, the people who were known to live in that region when archeologists and historians theorize those mammoth carved buildings were created, were nomads. Why and how would nomads have either the engineering knowledge or the skill to build those kinds of structures? Not to mention the wherewithal, since the temples and carvings date back at least as far as the 3^rd century B.C., during the bronze age, or the beginning of the iron age. Look again at the carvings. 150’ tall, with as much as 75’ of tall rock to be removed before the face of the temples is even begun. With bronze or iron tools? With that much detail and precision? I started developing a great idea for a novel about an pre-Greek empire Greek engineer who’d been to ancient Egypt (where there were Greek influences far back in time), who was either a restless soul or banished to exile in the Levant, and who then stumbled on a Nabatean tribe and fell in love with the tribal leader’s daughter, and won the father’s approval with promises of building him monuments of glory like other great leaders had. I’m kidding, but it’s not 100% impossible. 

But the question remains … WHY? Culturally, nomads don’t build monuments and permanent structures. And then there’s the issue of water. Yes, there are impressive collection systems and cisterns there. But that wouldn’t get a large group of people through the many dry months when it’s well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Perhaps it wasn’t a permanent residence site (likely, for nomads), but an annual religious or tribal gathering place. But to invest decades (at a minimum) into carving structures and systems for a place you use only a couple of months a year? And why a massive temple structure 2.5 miles up in the mountains from the rest of the canyon? It doesn’t make sense! And yet, there it is, challenging and defying us to uncover and understand its story:

The iconic first temple at Petra, but far from the most interesting there.

Vivid layers of colored rock, with intricate carvings, with interior rooms 30’ tall and 60’ wide. Who would have done it, and why?

A close-up of one carved temple called the Monastery, because it’s 2.5 miles up a steep path from the other structures. Roughly 150’ tall and wide, set back 75’ into solid rock. 

A broader view of the Monastery: 150’ tall, carved into a rock that required 75’ deep rock removal before the carving of the facade was even begun, 2.5 miles up a steep path from the rest of Petra, surrounded by such harsh landscape … why?

The ruins of an ancient Roman city on the valley floor, with the older rock-carved temples above them … 

3. Egypt

And speaking of the challenges of uncovering history … We also spent time exploring the tombs and pyramids of Egypt, along with related artifacts now displayed in museums. Which led our son, the ancient history major, to ask if it was really morally defensible to desecrate tombs and pull out their contents to display, even for the sake of education and preservation? Especially in the case of Egyptians, who believed that if the body and goods were not left intact in the burial chamber, the owner would be kept from paradise and eternal life? 

A challenging question that led to some really interesting family conversation. How would WE feel about having our parents’ graves dug up by curious people in the future? Worth noting is that most of the Egyptian tombs were raided by looters long before archeologists got to them. That’s why King Tut’s tomb was such a blockbuster discovery. It was intact. So if the goods are going to be raided by black market thieves anyway, preservation in a museum would appear to be a better choice. Like preserving an endangered species by capturing and housing surviving examples in a protective enclosure. But it doesn’t remove the discomfiting realization that it is still an intrusive and morally murky action, especially when it comes to sacred burial sites:

The pyramids at Giza.

A burial chamber inside one of the Great Pyramids in Giza.

Papayrus taken from one of the many tombs archeologists have uncovered and whose contents have been removed for display.

4. The Limits of Our Perspective

And finally, we found ourselves, as so often happens in international travel, coming face to face with the limits of our protected, American perspective.  For example:

We spent a couple of hours at a national government carpet school near Saqqara, Eqypt, where children are learning the ancient trade of making Egyptian carpets by hand. They spend the morning learning to make, and making, carpets. After lunch, they get classroom lessons in Arabic, English, math, etc. And they get paid for the time they spent working as apprentices in the rug factory on the lower floor of the school. Looked at through an American idealist’s eyes, it is, inarguably, child labor. But to get to the school, we’d just driven through miles of a mentally overwhelming montage of trash heaps, polluted canals, rubble-strewn half-finished buildings and shacks, all screaming unbearable poverty and squalor. What would the better alternative be for poor kids in a country where school is not free, and many families don’t have the money to school or feed regular, good, lunches to their children? They’re not going to play on nice playgrounds after school, with snacks provided by the PTA. Ever. And looked at through that lens, these kids are at least learning a trade they can use to feed themselves, while learning to read, write, do math, and be fed at least one good meal a day. We have no idea how good our options really are.

Children learning the trade of rug-making at a government-supported carpet factory and school.

Or, finally this, below: a photo of us and our guide at Saqqara. On one level, a nice tourist photo. But spending the day with her, we learned a lot. And not just about ancient history. She explained that she had a PhD in Hieroglyphics, which made her incredibly valuable as a guide, since she could translate what we saw on monuments and papyrus rolls. But it begged the question: What was a woman with a PhD doing working as a tour guide? Hints arose. She talked about her daughter, who, at the age of 16, participated in the 2011 protests in Tahir Square – and, as a result, had been arrested by the police. Her daughter was then tortured and repeatedly gang raped by the police for the next six months before her mother finally was able to get her released. Just digest that for a moment. It’s one thing to know that inhumane torture exists in the world, and that women are often the victims of violent sexual assault as a threat or punishment for speaking up. It’s another entirely to spend a day with an anguished mother who has first-hand experience with it. Our guide also talked about knowing the only five Jewish people in Egypt – all women, and all of whom kept their religion a secret, for fear of reprisal. Was she being literal and serious? I don’t know. But we got the point. And I was humbled by the courage of a woman who moved in those circles, had a PhD but worked as a tour guide, and was still standing tall after enduring all that she talked about, and all that she surely left unsaid.

Travel beyond what we know is important. But to reap its full rewards, we have to be open not only to the moments of beauty and wonder, but also to being discomfited, unsettled, and changed by our experiences. And to have that happen, we need to look outward, and seek all that places have to teach us, show us, or even shock us with. To savor the beauty, yes, and rejoice in the sense of wonder and discovery they help us find again. But also to be challenged to rethink things; to expand our understanding and beliefs; to feel things we don’t, at home. Those moments are as important as the beauty; the memory of the dark that highlights the precious value of the sun. And if we’re lucky, we return home with more than cool photos. We return home humbler, wiser, and more grateful for all that we have. 

I’m also pretty sure that nobody brandishing a Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt sees it that way. Wearing a labeled T-shirt is a way of making an identity statement. It proclaims to the world: “I feel affinity with the Tommy Hilfiger brand. I am cool, just like their models, and that lifestyle is one I aspire to.” Or to put it succinctly: “I am a Tommy Hilfiger kind of person.” 

In truth, how we dress almost always says something about who we are, even if it’s just that we don’t care overmuch how we dress. But for people who feel as if their identities aren’t readily accepted and supported by the world around them, identity statements can feel much more important. Years ago, when I moved from California to the Midwest, I remember feeling as if I was suddenly under attack by an avalanche of restrictive, ultra-traditional gender and social standards and expectations. Normally, I’m a fan of classic-styles clothes, because that means I don’t have to shop for new ones very often. I’m also not inherently a Bohemian counter-culture kind of person. But in that Midwest town, where women were still judged by the quality of their homemade mashed potatoes, I suddenly felt an intense desire to start wearing tie-dyed hippie clothes as a kind of armor, both to proclaim my difference and to protect against having my voice and identity swallowed whole by the stifling conventions around me.

It’s the same reason that identity-statement clothing—along with particular hairstyles, body art, jewelry, or any other symbol visible to the world—tends to be important to young people. It acts as both a reinforcement of deeply felt individual difference, as well as an act of defiance against perceived family, peer, societal, or other  external pressures to be someone other than who they feel they really are. In a developmental stage where the main task is figuring out who we really are, many of us feel a need to scream that we are different from the cookie-cutter mold we see around us.  

At the same time, claiming or wearing an identity-statement label gives us another element we long for, especially if we don’t easily “fit” with the traditional culture or expectations around us: a sense of belonging. It lets us simultaneously proclaim our difference from one set of expectations, while announcing and gaining membership in another group for which we feel more affinity. 

All of which is well and good, and 100% understandable. But as appealing and powerful as identity labels are, they are also a double-edged sword—for a couple of reasons. The first is that the louder we proclaim our membership in one particular group, the greater the chance that we may turn away people who might have many other things in common with us, and who might prove to be valuable friends or connections, but who don’t or can’t get past the label we’ve blazoned on our chest. Walking into a bar in New York City wearing a Boston Red Sox hat, shirt, and jacket, for example, almost guarantees a cool reception. If, on the other hand, it happens to come out that you’re a Red Sox fan after you’ve connected with a New Yorker on other points, they’re far more likely to take it in stride. 

The second downside to identity labels is the impact they have on how others view us, or even how we view ourselves. My college roommate and I used to talk about how much we hated the icebreaking question, “Finish the sentence: ‘I am ….’” We knew the point was to add descriptors that would tell people how we saw ourselves. Roles, like “a student,” or adjectival attributes, like “smart” or “kind.” But she and I also recognized that in proclaiming or labeling some part of who we were, we were limiting how people would see us; focusing people overmuch on some small part of our identity, instead of making them see us as the irreducible, complex, multi-faceted, and ever-changing human beings we knew we were. We also recognized that, in the process, we would be limiting how we saw ourselves, by sheer nature of which factors we highlighted and emphasized, and all the other possibilities we were eliminating with each and every definition. Every time you insist on defining something, you exclude a whole world of things it isn’t. And there’s no way around that. 

Labels, in other words, are at once both power and prison. 

It’s a point worth thinking about, in the midst of heightened insistence on the part of many individuals to define precise descriptors for who they are in terms of sexuality, gender, and a hundred other potential categories of identity. 

Believe me, I get it. I spent the better part of 30 years fighting for respect as a woman in the ultra-male-dominated industry and world of aviation; fighting infuriatingly entrenched and traditional definitions of what that label of “woman” meant I was, could do or be good at, or how I ought to be behaving. When I started doing aviation writing, my editors still insisted that the only acceptable pronoun for “pilot” was male, so I consciously crafted my sentences with plural nouns, so I could use the more vague “they.” Fortunately, grammar rules finally caught up with the latter 20^th century, and now it’s standard to use “they” even with singular nouns like “pilot.” 

What we do about frustrations like that is something each of us has to decide for ourselves. We can, as many people now do, insist on carving out some new and specific descriptor that feels more “right” to us. But again, labels are a double edged sword, and we might want to be careful what we wish for. If we insist that people only address us or view us or refer to us in a very specific way, we also ensure that whatever label we put on ourselves is the biggest thing they will pay attention to about us. It may even focus their attention so much on that particular descriptor that they miss all the other nuances that make us an interesting, irreplaceable, irreducible human being. And the combination of those two may prevent us building or discovering bridges with other humans who might prove fun, valuable, or world-expanding for us to connect with. It’s hard to relax enough to connect authentically with someone you don’t know all that well when you feel a walking-on-eggshells-offense-avoiding need to focus, instead, on the specific terms and words and labels you have to use around them. 

Language and labels can also be easy substitutes for actual acceptance, action or change. The late, great David Foster Wallace wrote a terrific essay in Harper’s about how the focus on correct labels and language can allow people feel righteous without requiring them to actually do anything, including the difficult work of effecting real social or systemic change. Lip service, as it were. He makes a good point.  

My college roommate and I both took a different tack. Both of us, I think, spent very little time worrying about how people referred to or categorized us, and focused more on how they actually treated us. If we’d had to state a goal, I think it would have been to get people to expand their ideas about how they viewed categories like “woman.” What that could consist of … including a range of possibilities in terms of where a woman could sit on the spectrum between feminine and masculine, what her sexual orientation or identity might be, and everything else that she might be or do or be capable of. I think we wanted to get the world to spend less time thinking about labels entirely, and more on the unique layers and nuances that comprised the endlessly complex human beings we were, and all we were doing in the world. We didn’t want to redefine what labels people used with regard to us. We wanted to get past them altogether. 

Labels, after all, are tricky things. For all the sense of belonging or difference or space they may give us from the conformist pressures we feel, they are still prisons of their own. Which is why my roommate and I finally decided that the only good way to answer that ice-breaking question about how we labeled or defined ourselves was, in effect, to refuse to answer it at all: to answer, simply, “I AM.” 

The piece that made the read worthwhile was a lovely interview with Krista Tippett, the host of NPR’s long-running show “On Being,” which is apparently being transformed into a podcast in the fall. To be honest, I never heard the show. But reading the interview, I wish I had. 

There were numerous points Tippett made in the Times’ short interview transcript that resonated deeply and longingly with me. She talked about questions she asks her guests on the show to “get a sense of how someone thinks … so they will relax.” She explained that “we’ve all that this experience … when you know somebody gets you. You relax. You breathe. The other experience that we have all the time is when we’re with someone and we know we’re going to have to explain ourselves or defend ourselves.” I found myself wanting to be a guest on her show; to have someone actually making that kind of conscious effort to get me.

She also talked about “drawing out voices that deserve to be heard and shedding light on generative possibilities and robust goodness.” She said, “I talk about hope being a muscle. It’s not wishful thinking, and it’s not idealism. It’s an imaginative leap, which is what I’ve seen in people like John Lewis and Jane Goodall. These are people who said: ‘I refuse to accept that the world has to be this way.’ That’s a muscular hope.” 

And finally, she talked about the idea of “callings.” “Your calling may be something you do that gives you joy but that you’re never going to get paid for,” she said. “It’s the things you do that amplify your best humanity.” 

All of those things are ideas I fervently believe in. More than just wishing I could invite Tippett to a dinner party and have more conversation like that, I found myself wishing that I could have the kind of job she has, that would allow me to have those kinds of conversations all the time. Of course, one might argue that I’ve done something similar, through this website and the columns I’ve written, over the years, even if I’ve gotten paid little or nothing for a lot of it. But the thought led me to dig a little further into Tippett’s path, and how it diverged from mine.

One can never really know another person’s path, of course, because public facts give only a surface hint about all that lies beneath. But here’s the weird thing. In many ways, I could have been Tippett—or at least followed her path. I have the same insatiable curiosity for exploring the world, finding meaning, and understanding human searching and behavior that she does. And not only are we the same age, it turns out we were in the same graduating class at Brown University in the early 80s. Tippett majored in History, I majored in Semiotics. I could have actually known her; probably did run into her without even knowing it. Tippett studied and worked in Germany after graduation; I was an exchange student there. And but for a poorly packed moving van when I left Brown, which is another story entirely, I might very well have pursued a career in journalism from the start, just like she did.

So where and how do paths diverge? Well, there was the near-fatal car accident I had, my junior year of college, which affected many of my choices for the next few years (including the moving van). And perhaps I had more of a thirst for physical adventure than she did, which led me to a pilot’s license and the world and career field of aviation. I confess, I never had any desire to go to divinity school. And while I may not have interviewed all the deep thinkers Tippett has, I’m fairly sure she’s never flown a blimp at 30 mph across Europe, 500 feet above the ground, flown a U-2 spy plane high enough to see the curvature of the Earth, or stood alone on a glacier at 11,000 feet, awed into silence by the majesty of an ice-bound world without another human soul on the horizon. 

But what I really found myself thinking about were the junctures in my recent life that feel as if they represent the biggest divergence from where I might have been, and where I find myself now. Between 2010 and 2014, when Tippett was already solidly established with her NPR show, my own career was at a critical juncture of change. My aviation magazine career was coming to an end in a way I was powerless to stop, just as the publishing industry was imploding. But just when, from a strictly career-focused perspective, I should have been throwing 150% of my time and energy into creating a new and fabulous career path, I found myself up against another calling; one which I reluctantly decided was more central and important in terms of what Tippet would call my “best humanity.” 

The fact that I chose to finally get married wasn’t the conflict. It was that by doing so, I chose and agreed to take on the role of a full-time step-parent to a teenager who had been abused by his biological mother and bullied mercilessly by his older brother. That choice led me to leave my network of colleagues and friends in California in order to make a good home for him where he lived, on the East Coast. And being there for him; fully present, and trying to make up for the damage, and deal with its fallout, all of which required significant time and energy, took precedence over work focus or productivity. 

At the same time, I undertook a far greater caretaking role for my aging parents. I’d always flown east to manage their surgeries and other medical emergencies, but when I moved east, my husband and I took on the burden of renovating and putting an addition on my mom’s childhood home—while living in that construction zone with our blended family—so it would be suitable for my parents to move into when they needed to. And two years later, when my parents’ health fell apart, I took on the added burden of not only managing their medical care, but clearing out and selling their New York home and moving them in with us, taking over primary caretaking duties. A year later, my husband and I moved 500 miles away, but I’ve remained the primary manager of my parents’ lives and care in that home ever since. 

If my career had been on solid footing during that time, I probably could have maintained it. Maintaining is always easier than creating. But as a friend of mine, who’s now entered the same heart-breaking, soul-draining, high-maintenance caregiving stage with his parents, recently said to me, “Oh my god, Lane. I knew you were doing something hard, the past ten years, trying to build new career opportunities and directions. But now I realize, you were having to do that with only half your brain available.” Like Tippett said, it really is wonderful when someone gets you. 

I believe in the importance of not only callings, but in following those callings. It matters, if our lives are to mean anything. But although we all like to think that following our passions and beliefs will result in a Joseph Campbell kind of “bliss,” callings are sometimes more closely tied to sacrifice. Just as there are victories that exhaust us, there are callings that cost us. That doesn’t make them any less worthy or important. It’s just the way things are. 

Whenever I long for the road not taken, however, I stop and remind myself that there is a cost to every choice. What if I hadn’t followed those callings? Would I have rather had my parents dead, or suffering, or neglected in some state-run nursing home? No. Would I have rather been without my husband, whom I love dearly and with whom I’ve created such a rich and rewarding life? No. Do I wish I hadn’t had to make those sacrifices to protect my loved ones’ well-being and happiness? Of course I do. I also wish I had $5 Million in my retirement account. 

Beyond that, I remind myself that bliss is not actually a requirement for long-term happiness. For that, we only require three things: a sense of control over the choices we make, a sense of meaning in our lives, and positive connections and relationships with the people around us. If we decide what values are most important to us, and make choices that are aligned with those deeply felt priorities, we may not end up someplace fabulous. But we will be at peace with our choices, and closer to a life of meaning and connection—and therefore happiness—than any fabulous, external “success” can bestow. It’s a different kind of joy than what we normally imagine, but there is still joy in knowing we’ve served our hearts and humanity well. 

And even though I’ve never met her, or had the fun of a dinner conversation with her, I think Krista Tippett would agree wholeheartedly with that. 

But it doesn’t always feel like that. One of my coaching clients, after finally getting a promotion she’d been working to get for years (and should have gotten years earlier), said although she was initially elated at the news, that feeling was quickly replaced by a pervasive and unexplainable feeling of exhaustion. Exhaustion that lingered into the next week, and the next. Was there something wrong with her? 

No, I told her. She was simply feeling what every person feels whose victory has come not on a level playing field of physical challenge or sport, but against obstacles, headwinds, or any kind of injustice they never should have had to face in the first place. 

Making our way through the messy and complex world of human ambition, emotions, biases, prejudices, flaws, fears, insecurities, and social/cultural power politics is challenging. It’s why so many people find refuge in the far simpler challenge of physical adventure. A mountain doesn’t backstab you, ignore your talents, claim credit for what you’ve done, or hold you back because it doesn’t think people who look like you, or come from your background, should be climbing it. The challenge it presents is hard but straightforward. So if you win, it’s a clean and untarnished win. The kind that elicits joy.  

Victories in the human realm aren’t always that pure. And victories that involve overcoming obstacles that aren’t universal—that exist because of inequity or injustice—are tinged with the bitterness of knowing the fight was inherently unfair. The victory shouldn’t have had to be won; the fight shouldn’t have had to be fought. And unless the victory includes significant systemic or institutional change, the win is also tempered by the knowledge that the underlying problems that forced us to expend all that energy are still there. The unfairness isn’t vanquished; more battles lie ahead. So instead of joy, we end up feeling 2 parts vindicated and 8 parts exhausted.

My mom, who worked to right all kinds of wrongs in the world, from environmental pollution and the destruction of neighborhoods to school segregation and housing discrimination, never threw a party when she won a big battle or overcame overwhelming odds against her. She’d smile, hug the people who’d worked with her, and then come home and sleep for three days. 

Again, this is why people gravitate far more often to the kind of victories offered by sports, fix-it projects, garden renovation, or any kind of physical challenge or adventure. They offer a clear challenge, a straightforward task, and a clear endpoint we can rejoice upon reaching. But if we want to be our true and best selves in the world, achieve dreams that require access to opportunities or spaces that others aren’t necessarily inclined to grant us, or effect meaningful change in the world, sometimes we need to take on those harder battles. 

So the question then becomes: how do we combat that feeling of exhaustion? How do we take on those fights without completely depleting ourselves in the process? 

Everyone has their own way of replenishing personal energy: being in nature, retreating to private spaces that comfort us, unplugging devices for a period of time, or even taking on one of those physical challenges or adventures. But the sagest, wisest advice I’ve gotten … from all kinds of impressive women and minorities who’ve taken on tough but important challenges and battles in the world … including my mom … is to look for others who understand and can empathize, console, comfort, or even fight alongside you. There’s a great poem called “The Low Road” by Marge Piercy that talks about the power of that kind of community. That alone, you can fight, but they roll over you.  But that two people can keep each other sane, three are a wedge, four can start an organization, six can hold a fundraising party, and so on. It’s worth listening to, or reading. 

The point is, it’s the feeling of being alone against the world that’s most exhausting. If we can find people to laugh with us, cry with us, work with us and even stand with us, we have a team; a cheering squad to help us stay strong, endure the losses and, most importantly, celebrate the wins. Even if … or maybe especially if … it shouldn’t have been that hard. (Note: to hear Marge Piercy recite her poem “The Low Road,” in the above link, scroll down to the bottom of her web page. It’s the last poem listed.) 

But is that burned-out feeling inevitable, in today’s fast-moving world? My short answer is: No. Not as a sustained state of being. In fact, if we want to flourish and thrive as human beings, it’s essential that we find ways to avoid or combat the exhaustion of burnout.  It’s just that the cure can be a difficult one for many of us to embrace. 

Exhaustion is not a new phenomenon. Humans have experienced physical and psychological exhaustion after intense periods of crisis, or situations requiring extreme effort, since the dawn of time. Battle fatigue has been around as long as there have been battles. And people have been dying of that exhaustion for every bit as long, whether the challenge was trying to survive food-deprived winters, being forced to flee from undefeatable enemies, enduring natural disasters or even the inhuman demands of lifelong enslavement. 

But if we’re not in the midst of a battle for survival, and have some level of freedom, shelter, warmth and adequate food, that kind of exhaustion should be something we only experience in times of crisis. A personal or family illness or death. Big life changes. Natural or economic disasters that hit us unexpectedly. In between those events, we should be able to pull back to a more sustainable level of stress and output that restores and rebuilds our energy so we have a reservoir we can draw on to get through the next crisis, whenever it occurs.

If that’s not happening, one of three things is going on: 1)we’re exhausting ourselves by worrying overmuch about each and every thing we’re doing, draining our energy for no good reason (something worth consulting a therapist to correct) … 2) we’re in a psychologically draining work or living environment (which means we should seriously think about either leaving or at least reducing or balancing the amount of time we spend there, or 3)we’re simply doing too much. 

At first glance, #3 (doing too much) may sound like the easiest problem to fix. Just cut stuff out. But that can be surprisingly hard to do, because the pressure for doing too much comes from a lot of different places. Jill Lepore, in a recent essay in The New Yorker, chronicled the evolution of burnout since it was first “named” as a problem in 1973. Part of its spread, she noted, came from changes in the American work environment as “real wages stagnated and union membership declined. Manufacturing jobs disappeared; service jobs grew.” Those changes put more stress on workers, and made work more draining. But, she noted, “all the talk about burnout, beginning in the past few decades … turned responsibility for enormous economic and social upheaval and changes in the labor market back onto the individual worker.” 

All of that is true. Workers today are often toiling under ever-increasing (and one could argue unrealistic) productivity expectations, with less structural and systemic support—including inadequate childcare assistance, which has become even more of an issue since white-collar women began entering the workforce in greater numbers. And asking employees to perform at “war emergency power” levels on a sustained basis, or work increasingly crazy hours, doesn’t actually lead to increasing levels of production and excellence. It wears people out. 

The good news is, more people are questioning that “more hours and pressure = more productivity” assumption. So perhaps that burden will shift in the future. In the meantime, however, what can we do about that? We can’t necessarily change whatever dysfunctional ideas or expectations are in vogue at corporate management levels. But we can control how much of it we buy into, and what we choose to do in response. And that’s where it gets tricky.

Americans live in an achievement and accumulation culture, where the pressure to have more, buy more, and achieve more, is relentless. It’s what makes us so vulnerable to the pressure to wear ourselves out in pursuit of it. In addition to that, we’re subject to social and cultural pressures about what we have to do in order to be “good” parents, partners, and professionals. If everyone else is running themselves ragged shuttling their kids around to travel sports teams and events, surely we must do that, as well. 

But the truth is, all of those things are electives. Choices. And if we’re burned out on a daily basis, the only cure is to start cutting out enough to make our lives sustainable. One of my recent columns in the Aviation for Women magazine was titled “The 10 Pennies Rule,” and it relates the story of how I learned decision-making amid finite resources. When my siblings and I were growing up, my mother would put a stack of 10 pennies at each of our places at the dinner table. For each infraction of manners or rules, we’d be fined some number of pennies. So you had to think hard about your behavioral choices, because you only got 10 pennies. You couldn’t stretch them into more. No magic tricks or short cuts. If you used up all of them, you couldn’t buy any candy. And if you went into negative numbers, there was a cost. You had to work the debt off—and even one penny’s worth of debt always translated into some undesirable task. 

Avoiding or combatting burnout entails the same kind of decision-making. We all have 10 pennies worth of time, energy, life force and focus to spend on our days. That reservoir is not endlessly expandable. There are only so many hours in a day, so much you can push a human brain and body without cost, and so many things you can do well at any given time—no matter how much the productivity self-help gurus promise otherwise. So we all have to think hard about how we allocate those resources. 

The tricky part is that those allocation choices often mean choosing an alternative to what’s seen by others as “success” or “acceptable.” That doesn’t mean we have to walk away entirely, or even that we can. Most of us need to work—and if we don’t perform well enough, we can lose those jobs. But we can think about whether that next promotion is really worth it. What will really happen if we draw more boundaries around our availability. Whether the money a high-stress job offers is worth the cost it entails. And if we love a job that entails long hours or involves high levels of stress, we can think about what else we can jettison to give us the energy to do that job well and in a sustainable manner. Thinking we can be helicopter parents and high-level corporate executives, unless we have a partner dedicated to the parenting part, is a combination of fantasy and insanity. We need to look at what we value most, and load-shed or scale back the other items to give us the energy and focus to attend to those priorities successfully. 

Looking back on it, I realize that my parents had some very stressful times in their lives. But at the same time, they both say that they never felt burned out. Granted, it was a different time. But they also had two things going for them. First, they both loved what they did, and felt as if the work was meaningful, challenging, and rewarding. That matters more than people realize, in terms of preventing burnout. Work we find meaningful is less likely to drain us, as long as we don’t let it overwhelm the other parts of our lives, because for whatever effort it takes, it’s also psychologically energizing. 

The second factor in my parents’ successful avoidance of burnout was that they didn’t aspire to the same level of accumulation or achievement as many professionals do today. My dad was happy as a middle-management engineer. My mom stayed home when we were young, and then worked her way back to meaningful full-time employment as we got older. But what helped make that possible was also the fact that we had only a single black and white TV, one family car, went camping for vacations, and rarely ate out or ordered in. My parents also didn’t feel obligated to attend every single game and practice we ever had. But on some basic level, my parents traded money and status for unscheduled and relaxed time with us. That choice would be harder for many people who are now accustomed to highly-scheduled children, gourmet dining, resort vacations, and luxury homes and comforts. But it’s still possible. 

A friend of mine, who possessed a marketing degree and tons of smarts and talent, eventually chose to give up her corporate marketing career after she had her second child. She and her husband, who was a firefighter, decided that while the money was nice, their lives were miserable. So they cut back to live on one salary while the kids were young. She then got a master’s degree in teaching and got a job as a teacher when her kids were in school full time. “You know,” she told me, “we actually didn’t miss the money as much as we thought we would. We just had such a saner lifestyle. We had time to go hiking, camping, spend time with the kids, play sports, all that. We were happy,” she concluded. And by the way, she discovered that not only did she really like being a teacher; that lower-paying teaching job also let her retire with a pension, which helped compensate for some of the corporate paychecks she gave up. 

The point is not that we all should become teachers. The point is that we have choices. Burnout isn’t something we can fix with an hour at the spa, or a few minutes of mindfulness a day. It’s a chronic over-taxed condition. And the fix entails a life re-set. We have think hard, and honestly, about how much is sane and sustainable to do, and then make some clear (if difficult) prioritization choices about what stays and what has to go to make that budget work. 

None of that is easy. But as coaches often say, “I didn’t say it would be easy. I said it would be worth it.” 

(Read The 10 Pennies Rule)

But then, being the critical thinker that I am, I try to see the other side. Well, maybe some people understand concepts better in pie charts. And, I ask myself, are the elements in all those systems and processes inherently bad? Not necessarily. They’re often fine ideas, even if they’re not as original as some authors purport them to be. So I’ve always thought my objection must be just the way those books oversimplify human behavior and growth. 

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I read a retrospective critique of the best-selling book Emotional Intelligence, which was first published 25 years ago. The review, written by an associate professor at Oxford named Merve Emre, is well worth reading. But the sentence that particularly caught my attention was the way she described one of the problems she had with the book. She concluded, “This failing is inherent in the self-help genre, whose premise is that the capacity for change always lies within ourselves.” 

A big, bright light bulb suddenly went off in my head. Yes! That was it! That was my problem with the methods, systems, and pie charts! It wasn’t just that they were too tidy. It was the underlying premise that if a reader or listener simply followed those systems, multi-step methods, or neat pie-chart diagrams, they would get the prize that was promised. Success. Happiness. Power. Effectiveness.

And the world just doesn’t work that way.

The truth is, there are many elements, events, and factors in life and the world that we do not control. That’s the awfulness and wonderfulness of it all. Awful, because even on a good day, we only hold half the cards. But also wonderful, because that means that how things turn out isn’t necessarily a judgment on us. And that can help lift the burden of guilt and stress too many of us carry.

To be clear: I’m not advocating taking a lazy or passive approach to our lives because, well, we don’t control what happens, so why bother? There are still things we do control, and doing our best to be mature, grounded, and self-aware individuals, while building strong bonds with others, absolutely makes us stronger and happier people, no matter what life throws at us. 

I’m just saying that even our best efforts don’t always lead to the outcomes we want, no matter what we do. Environment, good or bad bosses and colleagues, physical illness, accidents, unexpected events in nature or our lives, tragedy, good or bad luck, coincidence, injustice, or systemic discrimination all play a part in how our lives turn out. We don’t want to believe that, but it’s true. We can do our best to see and understand the dynamics at play in any given situation, build as strong a hand as we can, and play the cards we do hold as best we’re able. We can try to influence outcomes. But we don’t control them. No matter what system, method, or pie chart we follow. 

It’s a lesson I learned in a three-day river kayaking course I once took, although I don’t think I realized what a big life lesson I was learning at the time. Kayaking successfully through river rapids takes skill, effort, and focus. River kayaks are inherently unstable, because they need to be highly maneuverable. So if you lay back and do nothing, the roiling currents will quickly flip you upside down, and you’ll find yourself flailing about, getting your head banged repeatedly against some underwater rock. The only way to have any steering control is to move (read: paddle) faster than the current is moving. That way, you can influence the line your kayak will take: this side or that side of that big rock; the east or west side of the river. But you still can’t guarantee the outcome. The best you can do is to try to navigate a viable path through all the currents you don’t control. If you attempt to push too hard against the current, you will lose (and end up, once again, upside down, with your head banging against a rock). And even if you do everything “right,” you can still get caught by some unexpected twist or force and end up upside down. 

A smart kayaker understands this truth, going in. So their training focuses on three things: 1) understanding the currents in a river rapid, to help them make better navigational choices; 2) building their core abilities and strength, to give them a good basis for handling what’s going to be thrown at them, and—most importantly—3) learning how to recover from being flipped upside down. 

The same is true for anyone trying to navigate the river of life. We can work to see and understand the dynamics, forces, and hazards we’re facing, so we can avoid some of the hazards and steer toward more productive paths. We can strengthen our self-knowledge and awareness, so we’re better equipped to handle the challenges we’re going to face. And by strengthening that knowledge of who we are and what matters most to us, we can make ourselves more resilient; more capable of righting our ship whenever it wobbles or capsizes. We can work to strengthen ourselves, so we can influence and handle the unpredictable outcomes and events of life. But we can’t actually control what those outcomes are. 

Why don’t more self-help books take that approach? I posed that question to my nephew, who’s studying for a doctorate in sociology. “You know,” he said, “I think the people who are drawn to those books and systems are people who don’t feel as if they have control in their lives. So the promise of control, even if it’s a fantasy, is the aspect of it that appeals to them.”

Another “aha” lightbulb lit up in my head. Because I think he may be right. It’s entirely possible that the reason all those high-promise books are so popular isn’t the specific goal they’re promoting (success, happiness, romance, performance, etc.). It’s the idea and promise of control. Even if it’s a wishful fantasy. Maybe because it’s a wishful fantasy. 

I get the appeal of wishful thinking. Of happy ever after guarantees. I wish I could have a way to insure that my life worked out the way I want it to, and that I could keep those I love safe. But then I think back, not only to my time kayaking river rapids, but also to the time, soon after I started dating the man who would become my husband, when my mom received a grim and potentially life-threatening medical diagnosis. When we got the news, Ed took my hands, made me look at him, and gently said, “Hey. I can’t promise you that it’s going to work out okay. But I promise you that we will we get through this. Together.” I think maybe that’s why I married him. Because he understood that true strength comes not from wishful thinking, or promises of control, but from building the inner strength and relationships we need to get through the challenges of our lives. 

You can’t build those relationships or that kind of strength, maturity and grounded orientation easily or in three simple steps. And you can’t simplify the process into a neat and orderly pie chart. Which means it’s a harder concept to sell. But you know, nothing worthwhile ever comes easy. That’s the real truth. And here’s what I can promise: even if we can’t control the outcomes, doing the work of building that self-awareness, inner strength, and strong, authentic relationships is some of the most important and worthwhile work any of us can do. 

In truth, it’s a question all of us have to answer for ourselves, especially if we’re trying to carve a unique path for ourselves in the world, or are trying to resist peer or professional pressure to be something other than who we really are. It’s all well and good to say we have to pick our battles, but that doesn’t help us figure out which ones to pick. 

We can’t fight every battle. As the woman I interviewed put it, “You can’t die on every hill.” A really important survival skill in a multi-cultural world is learning how to let things roll off your back, whether it’s personal disappointments or ignorant, snarky comments. But there are also times when it’s important to draw a line or boundary; to call out a behavior, attitude, or unjust event in order to keep from materially diminishing your ability to be yourself, or to set some standards for acceptable interactions and prevent future aggression or damage. So how do you decide when to respond, and what response to use?

There aren’t firm and fast rules that make the choice easy. But I start by dividing events into two categories: 1) general comments I find offensive or disagree with and 2) comments, attitudes, or actions that rise to a level of harm that they require a response, or which pose a direct threat to either my own sense of safety or my professional performance and advancement. 

I often encounter people, in and out of the workplace, who say things I find offensive or with which I deeply disagree. But whether or not I choose to respond depends on a couple of factors. 

And note that I said “choose” to respond. Because it is a choice. Not engaging with people who are looking for conflict is a valid option, and it actually can be a powerful weapon in drawing healthy boundaries. All of us get numerous invitations, on a regular basis—often issued by way of a bullying challenge or demand, or a taunt, pout, snide comment or angry slam—to engage with others’ dysfunctional behavior or unhealthy emotional needs. There is nothing that says we have to accept those invitations. Beyond that, engaging with those individuals isn’t usually productive. They’re not going to change or suddenly become emotionally healthy people. So sometimes, not responding or engaging is the best possible response. 

In the workplace, it’s also important to think about the potential consequences of if and how you respond to a comment or incident. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to think about anything except whether a response was justified. But it’s not a perfect world. So if responding might prompt a boss or colleague to work against our success, or might make it more difficult for us to get the critical mass of team acceptance and support we need to succeed, letting a comment or incident slide is sometimes the better part of valor. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ever respond to an offensive workplace comment or incident. It just raises the bar for what kind of comment or incident requires or is worth a response. 

When presented with a disturbing or insensitive comment, I also think about the person’s intent, and how open they might be to any response I might offer. I’ve learned the hard way that it’s a waste of life energy to try to talk to people who don’t have any interest in listening. So if I don’t think the person is going to listen, I’ll often choose to let jokes, incidents or comments slide, responding only by adjusting my opinion and potentially my trust of that person. On the other hand, if I feel as if the person’s comment was unthinkingly insensitive, or they might be open to hearing another perspective, I’m more likely to say something. But I still try to make those responses easy to hear, because my goal is to educate, not punish. 

Back in the days when I was not only flying but also working on airplanes, a lot of guys I worked with made insensitive comments. But at least half the time, when I looked for the intent in their eyes and faces, I realized they were clueless as to why the comment was inappropriate. So I’d gently explain that while I realized they didn’t mean any harm, this is how that comment made me feel, or why it wasn’t a good thing to say to a woman. Or I’d just look at them and ask, “Would you have said that if I were a guy?” And when they invariably stumbled and stuttered over the answer, I’d say—without anger—“So,  if you wouldn’t say it to a guy in my position, don’t say it.” Not every battle has to be combat, and picking your battles also means picking the approach and weapons you use to respond. 

But there are also times when a comment or action needs a stronger response. I tend to lump those into two categories: 1) comments that are patently false, derogatory or aim to rob me or another person of fundamental dignity and respect, and 2) comments or actions that need to be checked because they pose a potential threat to either my safety or my ability to be successful in my job or advance in my career.  

Two points worth noting here. The first is it’s much easier to determine what kind of comments or actions rise to that level of required response if you’re clear about what your core values and most important priorities are. Which is to say, the more work you’ve put into becoming self-aware and laying out a vision for what values and elements are most important and meaningful to you in your life and career, the easier it is know which battles to fight. The second is that drawing a firm line doesn’t have to be dramatic. In fact, it’s often more effective to strive to draw our boundaries in ways that allow another person to back down gracefully, or at least strategically. You can always get more forceful, if the first approach doesn’t work. You can’t de-escalate, once you’re gone full-howitzer. 

I remember one conversation, years back, in which several people around me were asserting that Black people didn’t take care of their yards. Instead of screaming “How could you possibly say that!!?”—which is what I wanted to do—I said, “You know, I grew up in a very integrated neighborhood. And that isn’t my experience at all. In fact, the two yards in our neighborhood I can think of that were most unkempt were owned by white families. I’m curious. What are you basing that conclusion on?” I framed my objection as based on “my experience,” which provided some space for the others to claim a different experience or perspective, but I also provided evidence for my opinion, and asked what evidence they had in return. Calmly, and unemotionally. Asking questions about what someone’s source is, and asking more questions about the legitimacy of that source, and offering that there IS another perspective out there—and offering evidence to support that alternative view or interpretation—may not change a person’s mind. But it’s more likely to make them slightly uncomfortable with a position unsupported by evidence or fact, or at least aware that there is not universal acceptance of it, than a screamed answer that’s harder to hear and easier to dismiss. 

Indeed, if there is one piece of advice almost all conflict management people stress, it’s to keep emotion out of any boundary-related response. And the best way to do that is through documentation and evidence—especially when it comes to workplace-related incidents. It’s not about the person. It’s about the behavior. So document, document, document, in detail, what was said or done. And in responding, focus on those facts. This is what you said; this is what you did; and this is why that’s not okay, and why I do not expect this behavior to be repeated. Calmly. Rationally. Firmly. 

I once had to figure out how to deal with a much more senior co-worker who’d come on to me on a business trip. We were going to have to travel together again, and I knew he was more valuable to the company than I was. So I wrote him a letter, documenting the specific behaviors that I felt were out of line, and telling him that while I respected his professional abilities, those behaviors were unwelcome and unacceptable. I also said I didn’t wish to escalate this any further, but that I expected him to respect appropriate boundaries for his comments and behavior on any future trips, and in any future interactions. In short order, I received a very brief note back saying he was sorry for my discomfort and it wouldn’t happen again. Boundary set; problem solved. 

Not every person will respond as well to a boundary line. So there are times you have to escalate. But drawing a firm, unemotional boundary based on documentation and evidence puts an offender on notice. Even a lot of ill-intentioned people won’t want to take on the calm but formidable conflict that you’ve now announced you’re prepared for, if they persist. They’ll go in search of easier targets. 

Setting firm boundaries is also easier if you’ve built bridges with more supportive people around you. The subject of bridge-building is one I’ll return to in later posts. But for the moment, suffice it to say that we significantly strengthen our ability to set boundaries with problematic people if we’ve built a reputation for competence and flexibility with everyone else. If our co-workers know we can be counted on to perform well and have their backs, and that we’re flexible and good-natured in our everyday interactions with others, that’s investment capital we can draw on to give us additional credibility and back-up support when we feel a need to take a stand. Sometimes, the people we’ve built those bridges with will even take on offenders for us, setting their own boundaries for colleagues’ behavior. And push-back from another man is often more effective than anything we could do on our own. 

Drawing boundary lines is still a challenge. But it’s an essential skill to learn, if we want to achieve our dreams and keep our voices from being silenced. How and where we decide to draw those lines is an individual judgement call, and nobody gets it right all the time. But we’re more likely to get it right if we know and are at peace with who we are and what matters most to us. If we have that core knowledge and confidence, it helps us pick not only the right battles, but also the right tools and approaches for fighting them more effectively … with some energy and laughter to spare. 

Hard to believe, but this month marks the 12th anniversary of this website! And while every new year has its challenges and opportunities, I think I speak for everyone when I say I hope 2021 proves a much better year than the one we just left in our rear view mirrors. The new year will undoubtedly still test all of us and our ability to manage fear, endure uncertainty, and focus on what small actions we can take to survive and move forward with our families and sanity intact. But there is at least a hint of light on the horizon. And even if it’s coldest before the dawn, the hope of dawn breaking soon can do a lot to warm the heart.

This month also marks the beginning of a new venture for me, in addition to my existing work. Starting this month, I will be writing a regular personal career development column for Aviation for Women—the official magazine of Women in Aviation, International (WAI). WAI is the professional organization for women pursuing careers in aviation, with over 14,000 members worldwide. The column is titled “Core Strength,” and it builds on the research, writing, and career development coaching I’ve focused on since 2015.

The mission of this website has always been to provide support for people who want to pursue life paths governed not by external pressure, rewards, or expectations, but by what allows them to bring their true selves into the world in a way that is fulfilling and has meaningful impact. Which sounds lovely. No Map. No Guide. No Limits, and all that. But the truth is, being a mature, grounded and authentic person in the world is hard. It’s why the tag line of this site is “The Adventure of Being Yourself.” Because coming to terms with who we are, what matters most to us, and then using that knowledge to create a meaningful, compassionate, and happy life is one of the most challenging adventures any of us can undertake in life. 

It’s also one of the most powerful and rewarding challenges we can undertake. My work since 2015 has evolved from realizing not just how important, but how powerful, a strong sense of authentic self can be—especially for women making their way in a world that’s still dominated by norms and rules set by men. If I was able to be highly successful as the first woman columnist in Flying magazine’s long and storied history, it was because I’d spent a lot of time developing that strong sense of self and voice first. That was the superpower that allowed me to build key bridges, draw necessary boundaries, and make the choices and tradeoffs that allowed me to have such a fabulous and fulfilling career in an industry that was—and still is—94% male.  

So when I retired my column after 16 years, I decided to put that hard-won wisdom and experience to good use, helping other women achieve that same kind of meaningful success without all the stumbles and heartache I’d endured in having to figure it all out on my own. In addition to reverse-engineering my own journey, I spent three years researching and interviewing therapists, educators, and professional women around the country to expand my understanding on the subject. In the process, I discovered that what had been essential in my own journey was actually true for most women trying to figure out, and then navigate, a meaningful and authentic career path. Especially if the vision and passion that inspired them happened to involve work in a male-dominated field like technology, aerospace, or aviation.

Since then, my work has focused on sharing the insights of that work––both through my writing, and through individual career development coaching. I’m writing a book on the subject (Surviving in a Man’s World: The Power of a Woman’s Authentic Voice), and I’ve been working with individual women to help them strengthen their self-knowledge, develop meaningful career visions, and navigate productively toward those goals with their sanity and happiness intact. 

My new “Core Strength” column will give me another way to connect with dynamic women who are determined to follow their passion into the diverse professional world of aviation, with all the exciting rewards—and cross-cultural challenges—that entails. And I’m incredibly excited about the opportunity! You can find more information and access my columns through the Women in Aviation, International website. But also expect to see more posts here with related content. 

It will be an adventure, to be sure! 

117 years ago, the Wright brothers made their first powered flight at Kitty Hawk. Despite the fact that the distance their Wright Flyer covered would fit easily inside the cabin of a 747, the event changed the world. From that point on, the question became how to evolve and improve on that initial design, not whether or not powered, controlled flight was possible. 

Understandably, therefore, what the world focuses on is that transformative 12-second achievement. But the truth is, that endpoint was years of curious exploring in the making. Along the way, the brothers ended up inventing several other components, including their own wind tunnel to help evaluate wing designs, several successful gliders, and their own piston aircraft engine—substantially lighter weight than anything on the market. And that 1903 winter in Kitty Hawk was actually their third year of experimenting among the sand dunes there. 

The point is that in 1899, the Wright brothers didn’t have it all figured out. They figured it out along the way.

I had that and many other journeys and adventures in mind the other night, when I talked to my nephew, who’s 27. He’d just started dating a woman he’d been good friends with for over two years, and he was agonizing a bit about how it was going to turn out, because he knew they were risking the friendship to pursue something more. 

I pointed out that once you realize that you and a friend have more than platonic feelings for one another, the ship containing the option of continuing a stable and happy platonic friendship has kind of sailed. But I also told him that relationships are like any other grand adventure, exploration, or life journey. You don’t have to know how exactly where you’re going to end up, or be sure it’s going to work out, in order to feel confident about setting out. You just have to decide you want to begin. You take whatever information you have at the moment, and weigh whether you’re happy where you are, or if there’s a potentially happier option over the horizon … and if that potential happier option is worth leaving where you are. 

In a sense, career decisions are no different. One coaching client I worked with knew she was stuck in a job she didn’t like. But she felt she had to know “the right” job she’d really love in order to make a move. And sitting unhappily in her office, she wasn’t coming up with any answer that felt right or perfect. So there she sat, trapped by the misguided notion that she had to know the destination before she set out. 

The biggest problem with that kind of thinking is that none of us is likely to figure out what the perfect job is, or who the perfect partner is, sitting motionless in a chair somewhere. For one thing, humans are notoriously bad at imagining correctly what will make us happy in the future. But another piece is that a lot of important knowledge can only be learned through exploring and experience. My late uncle’s wife’s father (if you can track that relationship) was head of the team that developed the Saturn rocket that got the Apollo astronauts to the moon. In telling about it, he used to say that when the design team began, the challenge wasn’t just that they didn’t know how to build a rocket capable of reaching the moon. Like the Wright brothers, the technology they needed in order to do that didn’t even exist yet. They had to explore, invent, and figure it out along the way. To get the answers they needed, they had to try things out. And not everything worked. 

In the same way, the only way we really figure out what relationship or career is going to make us happy is by exploring possible options and taking notes on what works, what doesn’t work, and what seems to be missing, still. We have to try things out. In the process, we learn more about what we like, need, and feel good about doing. I didn’t even figure out the vague career field I wanted to pursue until I was almost 30, and even then, it was only by getting a job as a writer that I learned how much I liked it. 

We can certainly narrow down the infinite options to a more manageable number of beginning points, and avoid some lost time and effort, by taking note of what we think we’re good at, the kinds of things we like to do, and what activities we find rewarding vs. annoying … and then looking for jobs that seem to fit those requirements to some degree. But then we just need to decide to start; to find a job. Any job that checks enough of those boxes to be a productive starting point. It doesn’t have to be the right choice, in the end. It just has to be educational. Of course, that means we need to actually pay attention and take notes about what’s working and what’s not, and what we’re learning from all that, along the way. Just like the Wright brothers and the Saturn rocket design team must have done. (And yes, the same rule applies to trying out relationships, even if the criteria and questions we ask ourselves are a bit different.) 

The point is, we often surprise ourselves. Few people I know who love their jobs now set out with that clear knowledge or vision in mind. They got there because they looked at what they knew about themselves, figured out a possible starting point, and then decided to set out. To do, as one friend put it, “something, even if it’s something wrong.” The rest, just like any explorer who makes great discoveries, finds great love, or ends up with a job they love … they figured out along the way.

The tag line of this website is, indeed, “The Adventure of Being Yourself.” And I’ve written extensively, here and elsewhere, about the power of developing an authentic core and voice. But I’ve also had to clarify exactly what kind of authenticity, and what version of ourselves, I’m advocating, because a lot of people evidently associate being “authentic” or “yourself” with a person doing and saying whatever they like, regardless of the impact on anyone else. 

Perhaps I should have made the tag line clearer by specifying that the focus of this website is on the adventure of being our full, mature and grounded adult selves, not our self-absorbed, tantrum-and-instant-gratification-prone two-year-old selves. It’s a key distinction. 

It certainly could be argued that a two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum is being authentic. But they’re also being two, with an attendant level of maturity and psychological development. Which is nothing any of us would recommend as inspiration or aspiration for a fully grown adult.

As we mature, we’re expected to become more aware and in control of not only ourselves, but also ourselves in relation to others. Part of the reason that’s important is for the survival of the species. Humans wouldn’t have lasted long on the planet if they couldn’t work with and care for each other. And certainly that “good of the group” argument is what’s often used to promote personal restraint or consideration of others. But one needn’t be an altruist to embrace the work of developing a mature and grounded sense of self, or acting in ways that build strong and caring community bonds. Because those same actions are what allow us our greatest happiness, as well. 

There is a mountain of research out there (growing by the day and cited at length in my newest book project on the power of a woman’s authentic voice) saying it’s not the external rewards of money, status, fame or stuff that make us happy and keeps us healthy as we age. It’s three things: autonomy (a sense of control over our choices and lives), a sense of meaning in our lives, and … perhaps most importantly, strong personal relationships and a sense of community. And if we want to build those strong relationships and communities, we need the ability to think and care about others as well as ourselves. To balance what we want for ourselves with what’s best for those around us. 

Most of the loving relationships we add to our adult lives—including pets—impede our inherent freedom to do whatever we want. My husband and stepson still give me a hard time over a speech I gave, and they attended, where I explained to an audience member who’d asked why I hadn’t recently undertaken the kind of world adventures I had in years past, that all those months I’d once spent abroad took place back when I was single and “unencumbered,” and therefore free to indulge in that kind of long-term travel. Also, I added, when there was a robust enough publishing industry for there to be budgets for that kind of thing. 

“So we’re encumbrances. Okay, then,” my husband noted with amusement as we left the speech venue. Well, yes. On a fundamental level, they are. But they’re welcome encumbrances. Take on marriage or parenting, and you no longer get to do what you want all the time. But by willingly giving up that freedom, and focusing on the needs of not just yourself, but also the needs and welfare of that familial community, you get the joy of those relationships. That’s the trade-off. 

The same principle applies to bigger communities, as well—and not just because of the satisfaction we get from individual relationships within them. It’s because there’s also a kind of joy that only becomes possible when we embrace that adult ability to consider not only what we want, but what others need and want, as well. And it stems from not only the benefits that come with community, but also the second important element we need to be happy: a sense of autonomy. 

When we’re children, we lack autonomy. Our parents and elders tell us what to do. And when that clashes with what we want to do, we often pout, get sullen or angry, yell, stamp our feet, or throw temper tantrums, because that’s our only power to push back. It doesn’t make us happy, but we do it anyway, in a rebellious effort to feel some kind of power or autonomy. Of course, the reason our elders are telling us what to do is because we are children. And therefore immature, from an emotional and psychological development standpoint. Left to our own devices, few of us would act like adults and consider responsible behavior or anyone else’s needs in the bargain. It’s something we need to develop the ability and capacity to do. 

Developing the ability to get beyond ourselves and consider the welfare of others as well as ourselves is, in fact, one of the primary tasks involved in attaining emotional and psychological maturity. Look at any psychology textbook. If we don’t develop that beyond-self caring ability, we remain emotionally immature—which is what happens in the case of narcissists. Selfishness is, by definition, a childish trait. It may sound appealing to focus only on our own desires—on pursuing what we want with absolute freedom and to heck with anyone else. But fighting to hang onto that selfish perspective comes with a big downside: it leaves us stuck in the mindset of a child. Which is to say, feeling the need to push back against the perceived adults in the room (or society) with anger, resentment, and a jutting out of our lower lip or jaw.  

This is not the stuff of joy. 

If, on the other hand, we embrace the mantle of adulthood, with all the freedom and responsibilities that entails, we gain that precious and powerful sense of autonomy. We’re no longer doing things to help or protect others because we’re being told to, but because we recognize the inherent value and importance of those acts—including following laws and regulations that are designed to keep society safe and healthy. And because we’re making those choices of our own volition, we don’t have anyone we need to push back against with anger, resentment, or rebellious sullen defiance. We’re really and truly free. And with that freedom, many things become possible, including the rewards of meaning, fulfillment, love, and joy. 

The joy we feel as we gather in community to care for one another may not be the same in-the-moment joy a three-year-old feels reveling in her own amusement and play. But as a lot of research also shows—it’s far more powerful, and it lasts a lot longer. 

I learned that lesson long before I read any of the research, however. I saw it in action, as a child. I had the privilege of growing up in the first integrated UCC church in America. Ridgeview Congregational Church was a tiny red-roofed church on the top of Fisher Hill, in White Plains, New York, and it was integrated by design. When minorities began to move into the neighborhood in the 1950s, the church’s pastor decided the church should not only reflect, but also be the center of the neighborhood; a place that would sustain the community through the transition and tumultuous times to come. So he went door to door and asked every new Black family to join.

There were many benefits to growing up in a multi-racial, multi-cultural community like that. But the most powerful one; the one that has stayed with me with the greatest lingering impact, is the example it gave me of the strength and joy that a grounded, authentic, and community-oriented approach to life could generate. Clearly, not everyone in any group will have developed a mature, grounded, and authentic core. But looking back, I realize that most of the Black members of that church were amazingly grounded and authentic. And intensely concerned with community ties and the welfare of others. I wrote about one of them in a previous post a number of years ago. But Jim Rice was far from the only pillar in that church community. 

The power that people like Jim Rice exuded didn’t come from status or wealth. Their power came from being mature, grounded, authentic, and connected with others. Those elements generated the power to move mountains, despite being a minority class harshly discriminated against in the world. But it generated something else, as well. Even when times were hard, which they often were for Black families in the 60s, what I felt within that church community wasn’t resentment. Anger at injustice sometimes, for sure. And determination, always. But what I really felt, on a daily basis, was a deep and pervasive sense of joy. A joy so strong that it was contagious, lifting me up, as well. 

Where did all that joy come from, in people who had so many burdens and struggles in their lives? I never got the chance to ask any of them directly, which I regret. But looking back, I think the joy came in part simply from being grounded, mature, and authentic. If you’re bringing your best and most authentic self and voice into the world, you’re not worried about proving anything, or caught up in petty insecurities, so it’s easier to feel joy. 

I also think the joy was a by-product of all the care and effort those individuals put into building a strong community around them. If you’re lucky enough to be surrounded by people who have such a deep commitment to community—and by extension, you—that you know you won’t be alone or allowed to fall, no matter what the world throws at you, you feel the joy of that love, security and comfort, even in the dark.  

But there’s one more important part of the answer; a lesson that speaks directly to my whole point, here. I believe a big piece of the reason I sensed such joy in all those giving, grounded, and loving people is because there is joy that comes directly from embracing the freedom to care for others. When we choose, of our own volition, to go beyond our own interests and selfish desires to offer care and concern to others. Not because we should, but because we can.