Looks good, feels bad

I continue to slowly work on my New Year's commitment to clear the reading stack from my bed stand before new books.  I have had some success.  I decided that I had no interest in reading a book that my boss had loaned me two or three years ago, but have felt duty bound to read it.  I gave it back on Thursday.  I have finished Richard Rohr's Falling Upward, the second half from which I found quick insights.  (1/30/15) And, I am feeling some urgency to dispose of others since I have two new books that I am eager to start.

I've read another 40 pages in Creative Confidence, Tom and David Kelley's book on unleashing our creativity.  Not unlike Falling Upward, I had gotten stuck on Creative Confidence just before I got to the spiritual meat.  The early part of their book had looked at a design process they teach at the d.school at Stanford and use with corporate clients.  Not long after I picked it up to resume reading, I found myself  in a chapter, entitled "Seek--from Duty to Passion," and not far into that chapter is a section head "The 'Looks Good, Feels Bad' Trap."

Quickly, "Looks Good, Feels Bad" had my full attention.  They talk about having a "safe and prestigious job that makes your parents smile, impresses classmates...or sounds good at a cocktail party...."  That is the "looks good" part.  The "feels bad" part comes when, no matter how impressive the job looks, the person in it just doesn't feel the job is a "fit."  The thing is that we often slide into such a job without consciously visiting how it feels to us once we are in it. 

The Kelleys quote Robert Sternberg, "People get so bogged down in the everyday trivial details of our lives that they sometimes forget that they don't have to be trapped." 

I watched a movie over the weekend in which a man was fired from his job on Wall Street, and after much consternation, he came to understand that he has been much happier living in a small town than he ever was on Wall Street. 

I recalled a number of the extremely successful executives whom I had coached who found themselves trapped in jobs they didn't enjoy simply because they'd become too successful to walk away.  Some entrepreneurs had a great idea, and then they found themselves running a company, which was something they'd never wanted to do. 

One extraordinary heart surgeon that I coached had never even wanted to even be a doctor, but it was "the family business."  He followed in the steps of his grandfather, father, and older brothers because being doctors is what men in his family did.

Some were trapped by the cost of a lifestyle that they'd somehow slipped into--much more than they ever wanted, but now they felt obligated to their families to keep them in the style to which they'd become accustomed.  Many times the family would have preferred to have them at home more than working to pay for the lifestyle.

Doing what Rohr would call "second half of life work," I have pondered the "looks good, feels bad" trap in which I find myself.  Is it any different to be in a looks-good, feels-bad job out of financial necessity than to be trapped there by success?  Until I honestly grapple with my shadow, that would be an easy go-to position, but I can't find any credulity in it for me when I am being honest with myself. Being in a Looks-good, feels-bad job is a trap regardless of where on the economic spectrum the job incumbent finds him- or herself. And, a trap is a trap.  We can't seem to find our way to freedom. 

One of the instructors in the leadership program for which I've been coaching recently told a personal story last week that reminded me of the old "Um Weg" experiments.  "Um Weg" is German for "one way."  There have been many "Um Weg" experiments with a range of species from earthworms to house cats to human beings.  In all of them, when we feel trapped, we can't see an obvious and easy way out of our circumstance, but instead repeatedly throw ourselves at the same solution over and again, even though it never works. 

As Sternberg said, "People get so bogged down in the everyday trivial details of our lives that they sometimes forget that they don't have to be trapped." 

I still have 70 pages to read in Creative Confidence, and I look forward to learning if the Kelleys will share any helpful insights in getting out of my trap. I think they will not. If they had answers, then I wouldn't need to do my spiritual work. I am certain that I must remember that I don't have to be trapped.  I simply need to metaphorically turn and look the other way in my life where I can find a Don't-Care-How-It-Looks, Feels-Good work situation. And, I am certain that I will find it when I tap into my passion again.  Who knows? It might turn out to be a Looks Good, Feels Good role.