Not bored for a change

This morning at work, I worked on something that wasn't boring.  It was so refreshing, to work on something and just keep on thinking about it, instead of having my brain keep bouncing off everything I was trying to do.

An egalitarian college president

I work at a university where the president has a chauffeur who drives her from one building to another on campus.  She corrects any student who dares to call her by her first name.  She expects her vice presidents to rise when she enters a room.  This offends my values.  Quakers are the ones who went to prison for refusing to take off their hat for the kind.  I am stuck here until I find another way to earn a living.

Marlboro College is one place that has a very different set of values.  I have applied for jobs there, but I have not been offered any jobs there. 

The Summer 2012 Marlboro College alumni magazine has an article about a professor on the occasion of her retirement.  The professor, Laura Stevenson, joined Marlboro in 1986.  She says, "The first winter I was here we got a big snowstorm, and when I finally got to campus with my snowshoes and shovel, there were the president and the dean shoveling the walks."

The Spring 2015 issue suggests that the trend of non-snobby presidents has continued.  Regarding an ice storm in 2008, the magazine says, "Ellen was one of just a few people able to get to campus.  She opened the kitchen and ended up flipping pancakes." 

Ellen is the president of Marlboro.  The magazine refers to her by her first name.  The president of the university where I work not only refuses to be called by her first name, she also insists on being called by a pretentious title. 

Occupy Wall Street and participatory decision-making

Yesterday on Morning Edition, there was a story called Occupy Wall Street: Where Everybody Has a Say in Everything. It described the decisionmaking process of the Occupy Wall Street movement. There are working groups for the various areas that need to be worked on, and those groups decide how to organize themselves. Every evening, there's a general assembly where everyone meets to discuss things. Anyone who wants to speak takes a turn speaking. They have no megaphones or sound system, so the way they carry the sound is that the crowd repeats each thing the speaker says, so that all can hear. When people are done speaking, they vote by waving their hands.

I want to be part of a community based on participatory decision-making. This is fundamental to my values. This is a very Quaker thing. Quakers believe that there is that of God in everyone. They allow everyone a chance to speak. Decisions are made by the community, by consensus.

Yesterday evening on Marketplace, I heard the story Movement on the March. They found an expert on social movements who declared that "the movement has to find leaders, create a structure and identify villains." It seems to me that is a very establishment point of view. The establishment says things have to be a certain way. A movement is something that shows they don't have to be that way.

I want to live in a world where you don't need leaders, structure, and villains. I want to live in a world where we all work together to make this better.

This is my ideal. In practice, I know it can result in a lot of disagreement and indecision. In practice, I don't think I really like to be haggling with people all the time about how things should be. But in spite of those practical concerns, I think this ideal is my fundamental value.

This is what I want to do with my life, to be part of a community that show its respect for all its members by including them in decision-making. Every time I go to my job, I put myself into a community that violates this value. I have applied to jobs at places that are consistent with this value. They have not wanted me. So, until one of those communities wants me, I am stuck here. What can I do where I am?

You can't turn an apple into an elephant, so you may as well not die trying. I am not going to overhaul the entire culture where I work. But in my corner, I can live according to my values. I can treat the people around me with respect, and ask them for their input. When I notice people who are a positive force, I can lend my support to them. And I can get involved with others who do share my values outside of work -- the Quaker Meeting, and the Transition group.

That's the ambitious version. But there's another factor. There's the reality that I'm tired, sick, and antisocial. Sure probably a bit of that comes from the fact that the negativity of my situation drains my vitality, so it would be alleviated as I did more positive things. But it wouldn't be alleviated that much. Tired, sick and antisocial are a reality of who I am. For years, I have been coming up with ambitious plans about what I want to do with my life, but the plans ignore this reality. As a result, the plans don't get carried out. So yes, I can seek ways to live out my values. It's something to remind myself of as I go through each day. But I also have to remember what is actually realistic.

Willpower

This morning on NPR, I heard an interview with John Tierney, co-author of a book called Willpower. The main point was that willpower can be strengthened by practice, but it also can get depleted.

I think depletion of willpower explains how often toward the end of the work week, on a Thursday or Friday evening, I feel the urge to stay up late reading fiction or surfing the internet, and the urge to skip tasks such as exercise. At those times, I feel I have been spending all my time working hard, and I want to rebel.

A point made in the interview was that we can help ourselves by not straining our willpower. One example given was that sitting next to a plate of cookies and not eating them depletes our willpower. I have removed strains on my willpower from my environment. Now it is only the computer and fiction that tempt me to stay up too late. In the past, there were also TV and computer games, but those are no longer available in my home, which has made it less of a strain on my willpower to go to bed on time.

The story also noted that we can strengthen our willpower by exercising it. Examples of exercises mentioned in the interview included maintaining good posture, using correct grammar, meditation, and prayer. I do practice daily meditation, and I think it has helped me with willpower. I don't think of it as helping so much because it takes discipline to do it. I think of it helping more because in meditation (as well as my other daily druid practices), I take some time to be aware of how I feel and what's important to me. I put things in perspective. I remember the long-term consequences, instead of only focusing only on the immediate urge.

It may seem contradictory that we can strengthen our willpower by 1) not depleting it, and 2) exercising it, but the same is true of our physical energy.

What can I do for my willpower? I think my druid practices help to exercise my willpower. I think that allowing some time to relax on a daily and weekly basis helps me recharge when my willpower is depleted.

I think one problem that I have is that the number of things I want to do is about 10 times the amount I have the time and energy for. I do try to set priorities on a day to day basis, but maybe I should apply some of my willpower to setting realistic goals, even though it will require letting go of some things that I really want to do.

I think another problem is that I don't like my job. Therefore, my willpower gets depleted because I have to spend so much time trying to force myself to stay focused on doing something I don't want to do. I think that's the reason I don't narrow my to-do list -- because what I really want to do is to not have to have a job that I don't like. If I could spend less time on doing what I hate, I would have the time to do the things I want. And of course my to-do list would be smaller if I had a job I liked, because right now a huge chunk of my to-do list relates to trying to get a job I don't hate.

Work things I do and don't like

Industry

I think I want to work in education. The other places where I could imagine possible working are:

• An institution that does research pertaining to social science or education, such as a government office, foundation, or research institute.
• An institution that does something related to folk music, such as a concert venue, publication, radio station, management/promotion, or label.
• An institution dealing with outdoor recreation/tourism. I'm not into roughing it, but I'm also not into luxury hotels at fancy ski resorts. I like simple lodgings such as a cottage with plumbing and electricity but no TV or internet. I favor nonmotorized activities: walking over ATVs, windsurfing over jet ski, cross country ski over downhill ski, bike over motorcycle. The institution I work for should engage in ecological practices such as leave no trace hiking and recycling. Examples of the kind of organization I like are Scott Walking Adventures and Lapland Lake.

Work environment

• I like feeling that I'm part of a community. This partly comes from working in an institution of the right size: working with only two other people all the time is not enough, but being part of an organization with 10,000 employees ends up being too anonymous. The sense of community also comes from people having the opportunity to cross paths regularly and come to know each other. Another factor is having a shared sense of purpose, identity, and culture. That leads to the next item:
• I like working with people who share my values. We should all be out to help people, to treat people with respect, and to seek the truth, not to rake in as much money as possible.
• I like having the freedom to set my goals and work in my own way, yet the support of working with others who will give their input when I need it.
• I like not having to get too dressed up.
  

Types of tasks

• I like working on one big task rather than many small tasks. Partly it's an issue of focus. I like to be able to focus on the thing I'm working on rather than be distracted by the many other things that need attention. I think it's also a matter of complexity. Rather than working with a single strand of thread, I'd rather weave together many strands. I don't like dealing with the individual requests like:
  1. How many applicants from China did you accept last year?
  2. Write me a letter stating that I am a full-time student.
  3. Post a link on the web site.
  Instead, I prefer larger projects such as:
  1. Working with a list of 30 students and a list of 30 TA positions to figure out how to best match the students to positions.
  2. Creating a new database query
  3. Organizing the qualifying exams.
  4. Preparing a presentation.
  5. Organizing orientation.
• I like working with information. I like databases and statistics. I like taking in opinions from many different people and writing a synthesis that makes sense of it all. Writing meeting minutes does this so I should like it, but the reality is that I'm bored with writing meeting minutes.
  
• Though I like working with databases and statistics, measurement and quantification is not the answer to everything. For an enterprise to work smoothly, you need people talking to each other. You need to listen to what someone has to say, not just ask them to fit their opinions into a multiple choice question.
• I like interacting with people to get their input, to explain policies and procedures, and to provide a service. I don't like interacting with people to persuade them to do something. I don't want to be in sales or law enforcement.
  
• I like working with a defined community of people, as at a school, where you can have a list of all the people you want to reach. I don't like recruiting prospective students who have not already expressed an interest in the school because it involves an undefined community and because it involves persuasion.
  
• I'm good at organizing things because I keep track of things and follow up on things. If I'm running a meeting, I'll make sure everything gets on the agenda that needs to, I'll gather the background information for the agenda items, and I'll send a reminder to the committee members about the upcoming meeting. Sounds simple, but a lot of people seem not to do a good job on it.
  
• I don't like making decisions for other people about physical things like food, furniture, and decorations. I f I'm going to make a decision about such things, it should come from my synthesizing information about people's preferences, not from me thinking of an idea. On the other hand, I can make choices about less concrete things, such as people, schools, procedures, policies, curricula, and writing.
• I need time to collect my thoughts. I express myself best in writing, giving a prepared talk, or in a focused one-on-one conversation. In a meeting at which ideas are flying all over the place, it's hard for me to respond immediately because I need some time to digest before making my response.