Recently I found myself returning from a working trip feeling weighed down by the knowledge that I am losing my job because of Congress’s desire to be more fiscally responsible. Oddly, being laid-off requires me to do the work I have always done plus the work that goes with closing out a job plus the work of beginning a new job search. On top of that, I came home to flower and vegetable gardens in need of some serious TLC. Having to pluck weeds, deadhead flowers, and do all the tasks that go with harvesting fresh veggies was going to steal valuable time in my day, time I could scarcely afford.
I started the flowerbed work annoyed, pulling out weeds with speed and determination. But, to my surprise, each time I looked up and saw a blossom or paused to watch the hummingbirds that buzzed my head, I slowed down a bit. Eventually, the weed pulling became a transformative experience. As I meandered from flowerbed to herb bed to vegetable patch, my mind began to wander too, making connections, drawing insights, developing ideas. I began to wonder - as I had read in a e-zine not too long ago - if in our fast-paced, productivity-focused lives and workplaces, we are losing our gardens, our literal and figurative places that allow us to wander, to question, to think, to create, to reflect, to restore.
On the first leg of my last working trip to Berkeley, I was on the plane for about 75 minutes. When I opened by email as I awaited my connecting flight, I had received over 40 new email messages. As I sat trying to respond to the messages that seemed most important, the email dings kept ringing out. "How can I possibly keep up?" I wondered. “I’m doing the best I can just to paddle my little sinking boat right now.”
Then I realized, I can’t keep up. NWP is losing 60% of its staff and going through a major, unanticipated reorganization. Come September 1, I will be unemployed for the first time in 39 years. Where I live there are limited prospects for future employment. The job nibbles that I have received do not provide health care and offer a monthly salary smaller than my projected monthly COBRA payment. I am trying to keep my head above water on the personal front. But in the meantime, writing project directors and leaders with whom I’ve built strong personal and professional relationships are seeking a sense of direction, requesting information, trusting that I will listen to them think aloud about their own next steps. The emails keep coming."I have no time to think," I say to myself.
I have no time to think. Then I realize that these are the six scariest words I can say just now.
It is not that I am unproductive; I am astoundingly productive. I produce deliverables. I seek out and recommend resources. I make decisions. I manage the closing out of programs and budgets. I coach blog talk radio shows. I direct those seeking clarifying information, answers to question, resources and support for moving forward in uncertainty.
Actually, in some ways, my productivity is the problem. Something is lost in this odd environment of manic productivity: time to reflect and learn.
In the busy-ness of losing my job, I am rarely analyzing my experiences thoughtfully, contemplating the views of others carefully, or evaluating how the outcomes of my current decision-making will influence future organizational choices. Such things take time. They require me to slow down. Who has the time for that? My job loss, which had originally paralyzed me, has now thrown me into manic overdrive that can only be geared down by honest reflection on what I am losing, by pausing to see what it is that I can learn from my current circumstances, by pausing to contemplate both my personal next steps as well as my organizations next steps.
I have heard many say that when life is forcibly disrupted, we slow down long enough to learn. The death of a loved one, an illness, the loss of a job— they compel us to stop and think and evaluate things.
Wouldn't it be great if we could learn continuously without forced disruptions? If we could disrupt ourselves for a few moments every day in order to reflect and learn? If we could meander through the metaphorical garden? I wonder if NWP needs a few minutes to return to the places where it does its best thinking - member sites - and pause to reflect, create, and come back with a renewed spirit.
The intellectual conversations that I have had with National Writing Project friends and colleagues over the past 26 years have reliably provide me with a refreshing walk in the metaphorical garden. Yet I realize that I will no longer experience their generosity in the same way. While I can still call on my work friends and say, "Do you have a few minutes to think about something with me?" it will not be the same.
Now, I hope I am honest enough to allow my metaphorical and literal gardens to remind me that I have to prioritize reflective thinking over manic activity. It won't change the uncertainty of my future, but it will allow me time space to better understand what I am experiencing and time to let hope, like the hummingbirds, buzz my head and demand my attention.
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