As I said last month, starting in 2012 I’m running one guest post a month entitled “Once Upon A Time.” The featured guest poster will tell their story of how they found self leadership in their life. The series is called “Once Upon A Time” because self-leadership, while not a fairy tale, is about people making personal choices to get the life they want, and to go after their own happy ending.
This month’s “Once Upon A Time” is from my former student and now friend, Kristin. I don’t want to give away too much so let me only say that Kristin is one of those contagiously courageous people who raises the level of everything she touches. Her transparency and vulnerability are admirable, and her husband is extremely stable. So, win-win. Enjoy.
“Have you seen the chickens’ watering container?! It is so disgusting!” I tromp into the kitchen exasperated after catching up on chores. I just finished my first day as a college professor. “I tried to hose off all that green algae grossness and it is caked on there. We need to get a new one. Oh and it was a five-egg day.”
As I place the eggs in a carton, marveling once again at their different shapes and sizes, I hear a snicker from the stove.
Nate, my equal partner and devoted spouse of over six years is the culprit. As he stirs ratatouille with veggies he just picked from the garden, he turns to me, “I wish I had a tape recorder. Did you ever think you would say something like that? Ranting about chicken water and eggs. Did you think this would be our life?”
We both start laughing at this weird reality we are fully entrenched in now.
If someone had shown me the coming attractions to my life a few years or even months ago, I would not have believed it. I would have deemed it a hilarious, tragic, fictitious comedy.
Many little steps led to the present, but a huge shift happened just a year ago. I had been working at a university when I found out there was some re-categorizing happening. I would be getting a “new” job, which was exactly the same as the one I held for the past five years. However, it came with a sizable pay cut.
I had been thinking about leaving my job which had not presented many new growth opportunities in the way of responsibilities for the past couple years. I had just published a book, and our “garden” was beginning to be bigger than, well, a “garden.” Ideas swam in my head all day, looking for a home in a blog or essay. Meanwhile at our actual home, weeds called out to be pulled, seeds whispered to be planted and chickens squawked to be fed.
I needed to figure out what I wanted to say and what I wanted to do. However, more importantly, another layer of who I wanted to be desperately needed my attention.
Our life had shifted, but I was reluctant to move from a spot I had grown so comfortable in. The culture I was accustomed to told me I was supposed to settle down, be grateful for what I had been given, and enter a predictable routine. However, one conversation changed that.
“Have you thought of a PhD?” It was the voice of my spiritual director. I call her Yoda. She doesn’t know this. Her advice almost always comes in the form of genius nuggets of wisdom or completely intoxicating questions that leave me pondering for days. I wasn’t used to this kind of directness as I ranted on the phone about my belief in God and the journey of my true self.
“Um, I think I’m too young,” I respond being caught off guard, trying to squelch this idea before it gained any ground.
“What do you want – if you could visualize it – what would it be?” Again she was direct, but I went with it, yearning for some kind of direction.
“I guess I would want to teach, write, maybe have kids, and work on our homestead,” saying it out loud seemed so scary. I wanted a simple life. Simple meaning: understanding where our food comes from, enfolding children into a bigger legacy, and knowing our neighbors. Additionally, helping young adults develop their thoughts, continuing to invest in my own learning and living out the greatest commandment.
She knew I had applied to teach college freshmen how to write. I told myself that it was just a basic writing course, not rocket science, but it was enough. I undermined myself at every chance.
Teaching adjunct was not a PhD though – a PhD meant specializing in something enough to become an expert. My fears of being one of the ivory tower types separated from a cultural discourse other than the one happening in my own brain began to surface.
I feared being alienated from my peers and my students. There was still a little girl in me who longed to be liked even at the risk of subjugating her own voice and gifts. I was already raising vegetables and chickens and working with students on a small scale – why risk more change?
As I marinated about the PhD over the following week, I began to think about what I wanted in this life and who I am created to be.
The space filled up by a “normal” 40-hour-a-week job, followed by “Keeping up with the Jones’” and trying to compete in matters of career, with kids, with community, and even friends just wasn’t going to work for me.
Nate and I love working in the yard, eating our own food and preserving a way of life quickly going extinct. People come to seek out our advice and lose themselves in the fantasy world our yard has become. Our lifestyle calls people into a different kind of being and we love that about our home. It exudes from us. The “cultural norm” is not what we want. It started making a lot of sense that I would instead desire to teach and pursue knowledge at a deeper level. I was learning that good leaders don’t suddenly “arrive;” they are hungry to learn and grow.
It dawned on me that the excuse of being young was not enough to disqualify me any more. I was qualified, and pursuing what I wanted in life would bring me further along the path of my journey into who I am meant to be.
The Celtic spiritual writer John O’Donohue wrote:
“We tend to perceive difficulty as disturbance.
Ironically, difficulty can be a great friend of creativity.”
I was being given an opportunity to use my time and space creatively. It is a privilege I still do not take lightly.
This challenge was not going to drop into my lap either. I needed to choose and fight to make my life what I wanted instead of waiting for a disturbance or being annoyed at further interruptions.
As the year wore on, I was offered two freshman writing courses and a foundational leadership course for students exploring what leadership looks like. I went through five interviews and countless resumes. This was not an effortless process, but I was relentless. Additionally, I started working on another book and we grew over 100 pounds of produce in the fall. Like I said, this wasn’t easy.
Is this self-leadership? It is always funny to me when people come to us for advice about their gardens or read my blog. It’s humorous because we would do these things anyway. It is in the core of who are to dive into intentional living, not because we want to change the world. Rather, we want to continue to change our own lives to be in line with who we are created to be. Only then can we truly help others in this journey of life because we are not serving out of altruism; we are assisting out of authenticity. And don’t we all wish leaders around us were more authentic?
Authenticity requires that one shows up to their whole self: their grievances, sorrows, their laughter and their joys; to their reality as much as their dreams. And once that tension is realized, one can move into the present knowing that their gift to the world is being the most honest version of themselves.
As my spiritual director said to me on that day the pendulum swung, “You are allowed to dream what you actually desire.” Sometimes we just need prompting.
Kristin Ritzau is the author of A Beautiful Mess: A Perfectionist’s Journey Through Self-Care. When she’s not writing, teaching, learning, speaking, or sleeping, she enjoys spends time with her husband, Nate, in their garden, cooking, and taking care of their birds: Curry, Nugget, Rosemary, Buffalo, Kung Pao, Fettuccine, and Marsala. Keep up with her and their crazy life at www.kristinritzau.com.
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