Questioning Your Craving to Belong at Work
A podcast about the very human, but, in these times, the very questionable yearning to feel at home in the workplace.
A few years back, my family went white-water rafting, a venture that we were pretty sure would entail risk and peril. What we didn’t expect was that the white water would be the least risky, least perilous part of the whole experience. As it turned out, we got lost on the way to the river, and so, to make up time, my partner drove us (no kidding) 90 miles an hour, swerving in and out of lanes of traffic, trying desperately not to waste our pre-bought tickets for our adventure.
There were moments when we thought we might die on the way to the adventure. As a result, we found that, in comparison with our experience of sometimes reckless speed on the highway, we found the white water rapids quite calming.
For once, the supposed safety of the minivan felt more dangerous than the risk of the white-water raft.
I tell that story, because today’s Mode/Switch Pod is a meditation on institutional white water. It’s a reflection on organizational instability. And I’m going to propose to you that it might not be such a bad idea to start seeing your job as a raft rather than a scenic overlook.
There are some consolations in acknowledging the institutional perils of our time. Let’s think through them together.
-craig
Craig, it seems we've both had memorable and metaphorical experiences with white water rafting. At the beginning of the pandemic I wrote this post for a friend's therapy practice... it seems to fit, in a way, with your podcast this week:
Rapids
🌲 “If you’re thrown from the raft into the rapids, don’t try to swim against the current. Let the water pull you through the rapids, and spit you back out where the water is calm.”
🌲 These were the instructions we received on my first white water rafting trip as a teenager. For some reason, those words have stuck with me to this day. It seems so counterintuitive that in the scariest, most desperate moment, the best thing to do is stay calm and let the scary thing take me away.
🌲 That visual continues to enter my mind as our world faces this devastating virus. There are days I feel I’ve been thrown into the rapids. And just like the water, this virus is more powerful than I am. Accepting that truth, and trusting that eventually we’ll be spit back out when things are safer, has given me a sort of peace in the moments when I’m panicked, and feel that there must be something I can do to fix it all.
🌲 The other instruction given to us was “nose and toes”. “Try and keep your nose and toes up and out of the water as much as possible”… to keep us breathing and keep our feet from being hurt by sharp rocks at the bottom of the river. True survival mode.
🌲 I’m finding that comforting now as well. Most days I feel I only have my nose out of this water. Just breathing. But that’s ok. This IS actually a traumatic event, and there is no need for pressure to do anything but keep breathing.
🌲 We WILL be spit back out where the water is calm, and we’ll swim safely to shore.