What you can fix, and what you can’t.
A few weeks ago one of my closest friends, “Janie”, asked me to have dinner with her. While it’s not unusual for us to try to find time to have a meal together, the tone in her voice made it sound as though she really needed to talk as well. We met at a liquor store near one of our favorite Thai restaurants to pick up some beer, then headed down the street to grab some dinner.
After we placed our order, Janie began to open up. Some background: Janie graduated from college with both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in accounting. After working at a huge international accounting firm for several years, Janie realized she wanted to chuck the whole corporate life and focus on her true love: acting. She applied to several graduate schools and was accepted to an excellent program about an hour outside Chicago. Three years later, after completing her MFA in Acting, Janie returned to Chicago to act, direct, teach, and coach.
Like many actors who don’t earn a living wage from their art, Janie holds a full-time “day” job that helps support her and her husband, Jeff, a visual artist. She works as a project manager for a market research firm, which is about as far as one can get from the creatively fulfilling world of acting. When she had interviewed for her position at the firm three years ago, she told her potential employers that she would need flexibility with her schedule to accommodate her increasing opportunities to act, direct, and teach. The firm happily agreed, and somehow, over the last few years, Janie managed to work her day job plus teach occasionally at several local colleges, direct three plays, privately coach students for auditions, and perform in five productions. How she manages to do all of this, and still has quality time to give to her many friends and her happy marriage, is beyond me.
Janie sipped her beer, then told me about the uncertain situation at her job. Earlier this year, a larger company bought the firm where Janie works, which brought many changes. Janie’s boss, who enthusiastically supported Janie’s artistic endeavors, was transferred to another department, and Janie’s new boss is located at the corporate headquarters in Omaha. The new boss met Janie once during an orientation weekend, and has no real knowledge nor investment in Janie’s creative alter ego. “This lack of understanding of my situation? That’s not the worst of it”, Janie sighed. In a move familiar to anyone who has a nodding acquaintance with the inanity of corporate decision-making, the managers at Janie’s job eliminated a position in Janie’s department and gave Janie that job’s responsibilities. Janie is now doing the double her former workload - with no additional pay, of course.
My jaw dropped. “How the hell are you supposed to do all that extra work?” Janie pushed her Pad Thai around her plate, and shook her head. She looked up at me, and I could tell she was close to tears. “Do you know what I was doing before we met tonight? I was sitting at the Starbucks down the street trying to catch up with grading papers from the acting class I’m teaching. A Saturday night, and I’m doing the work I usually do on a weeknight. But I couldn’t do it on a weeknight, because every night this week, I’ve been trying to catch up on all this new stuff my job expects me to do. It’s driving me crazy, and for the first time, I’m making mistakes. ME. You know me: my spreadsheets need to be PERFECT!” We shared a laugh over our mutual geeky passion for order through Excel. “Anyway, it just becomes one problem after another. My boss gives me this extra work, and I convince myself that I can do it, and then I mess up, and I have to take extra time to fix the mistakes, and that takes time away from my acting and coaching, and I literally don’t know what to do.” Rarely have I seen my dear friend look so dejected.
“Honey”, I said, reaching for her hand, “The reason they gave you all this extra work is because they know your work ethic. You handle everything and anything they throw at you, and they know you don’t just welcome challenges: you thrive on them.” Janie nodded. “Thanks; I appreciate that. But I still don’t know how I’m going to finish this all work, without mistakes, plus everything else I need to do.”
I looked at my dear friend, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa, who never would be satisfied with a grade of B when there was even a remote possibility for an A, who was prepared to pull all-nighters in the first time in over a decade, if she needed to, to figure this out. “Janie, the problem isn’t that you need to learn how to work longer, or harder, or smarter. The problem is that your company needs to hire another person to do the work, or divide up the responsibilities among more people, and they seem to be unwilling to do so. This isn’t something that you can solve, because neither the problem nor the solution lies in you. You can’t fix this.”
Janie’s shoulders slumped, and she looked down, defeated. “I can’t, can I?” She drained the last of her beer and gave me a weak smile. “You sound like my therapist.” Flattered, I reminded her of the many times she supported me as I was disabusing myself of the notion that my love alone could move an addict to sobriety. “Like you told me, Janie: some things are beyond your capacity to fix, and that’s okay.” Janie nodded. “I have a lot of thinking to do about this, but in a different way than I thought before.”
After we left the restaurant, I thought about how other friends had thought that if they just loved harder, their troubled relationships would magically become healthy; how if they knuckled down at work, their employers would recognize and reward their considerable efforts with raises. In my experience, such things didn’t happen - these particular situations either needed a joint commitment, or were beyond repair. The ability to distinguish between the two is what’s so hard to learn, especially for those of us who grew up with the belief that “if you just put your mind to it, you can change it.”
In the spirit of a brand spanking new year, I’m going to remind myself that sometimes, the smartest or most loving choice to make, for myself as well as in certain situations, is to recognize what I can and can’t fix. I look forward to seeing how this perspective plays out this year.