Why I do What I Do

A long time ago I heard these words: ‘Let George do it!’

Of course I also heard all about Georgie Porgie, and pudding stuff…! Didn't understand those things but the letting George do it stuck.

At the time I didn't know what it meant but mom and dad told me to do lots of things those days, so I figured it was errands and tasks. Just get busy and do as I was told. You know the words, you heard them too, no doubt.

As the years ticked by ‘doing stuff’ became a habit. A routine. Something needed doing, I did it. If it was worth doing I did it early. In time the routine became habit; maybe even an obsession? Well, that’s for others to conclude.

At any rate I kept on doing. The pattern continued into my work and career. Eventually I was the person people came to for answers to questions, or facts on what would make their job complete.

I didn’t set out to be a know it all. No. I set out to understand what I was doing. Why was it important that the job assignment get done? How did it fit into a larger scene? Who else was involved in this task, and could we improve things and results by working together?

In time I became the explainer, not because I was imbued with extraordinary powers or intelligence, but simply because what I did had to make sense to me. With that understanding just about everything else fell into place.

Opportunities to use this learned skill became plentiful. Many people disliked doing tasks without understanding why they were doing them. Helping them understand that motivated them, so I offered my help. Soon that became my career: helping people understand what they were doing, what they could do better, and why. Eventually I helped people teach themselves these useful skills. 

They call such a career ‘consulting’.

In retirement I kept doing the explaining, only this time it was for free. Those same skills helped hone reporting skills as I moved into volunteer newspaper duties, reporting, and column writing. Then too community organizations asked me to be on their boards so I could assume secretary duties and take minutes of meetings.

Writing a blog became a natural and so, here I am writing yet another blog post!

Funny thing, though. What I do must have a broader meaning than what is viewed on the surface. The broader purpose I think has emerged over time in several ways. Let me see if I can put it into words.

I have always loved music. Usually classical forms. My favorite composers are Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Haydn, and Handel. Not in that order, of course. Learning this music by playing the piano, violin and singing in choirs, led me to deeper understanding of the music. Moods and emotions. Soaring moods, some up and many down. Into the depths of feelings I went with the music. Not just tones and melodies. Not just chords or runs. But sweeping ideas taking me places I had never been before.

These episodes of communing with music led me to visual art forms. It took years to form; decades really. But in time I appreciated color, shape, form and disjointed messages from artists in many genres. Entire arenas of meaning opened to me.

Ernest Hemingway wrote this many years ago. I think it fits here:

“The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.”

How can I tell the truth if I have not risked learning about it in the first place? How did I make sense of the world and the explanations I needed to understand in the first place? And if it is not beautiful in one form or another, how can I tell what is ugly?

I think Hemingway got it right. Tasting life is one thing, even savoring it. But exploring it takes discipline and requires risk. Whether these things combine to make the best people I really don’t know. But I do know that these things make life worth living.

Might this be a truth of yours as well?

March 26, 2014