Beaten Down, I Realized I'd Been Living by Other People's Judgment

My business isn't going well. Even my tax accountant gave up on me. I've written about that before.

So as a side gig, two years ago, I started a part-time cleaning job. Mid-fifties. However short-handed the times are, nobody's lining up to hire someone this age with zero experience. So I picked a site that said "beginners welcome."

The company's short-handed and struggling, so even a beginner gets welcomed. But to the people actually working the site, nothing's harder to deal with than a beginner who knows nothing. So on-site, I wasn't welcome at all. I could feel them getting irritated with me.

"No experience? Great, just great."

"You're in the way!!"

"That's not it!!"

"Go stand over there!!"

The helplessness I felt then was the real thing. It brought me back to being a kid, ignored by my classmates. Treated like my very presence there wasn't allowed. Maybe I'd be better off just going home and doing nothing — I seriously thought that. But it doesn't work that way.

I'd try to read what they wanted and move a step ahead of it — "That's not it!!" 

Shot down. So I'd stop acting on my own and look for the right moment to ask for instructions — "Quit standing around like an idiot!!" 

Chewed out. So I'd do something I figured I could handle on my own — "Kinda jumpy, aren't you?!" 

Every site, every person does it completely differently, so there's no right answer. Boxed in on all sides. Even now, two years in, there's no such thing as a right answer.

Still, I threw myself into learning the work.

Half of it, I think, was wanting to run from my real business. While I was cleaning, I didn't have to think about the company. But it wasn't only that. When I really looked at myself throwing everything into it, there he was, plain as day.

Me, wanting to be recognized.

Mid-fifties, I've got a fair amount of life behind me. So if I push, I can get halfway decent at it. And sure enough, two years in, I got to where I could do it well enough. But that's not the point. At the root of "I want to get good at this" was just "I want to be recognized." Learning the work had taken a back seat to being recognized.

Here, my own words got thrown back in my face.

When people come to me for advice, this is what I've told them:

"Don't act because you want to be recognized."

I think it's right. I still do. And I thought I was living that way myself.

But there in that cleaning site, throwing myself into it, I was moving because I wanted to be recognized. The exact opposite of what I told other people.

In my head I get it. I get it well enough to advise someone else. But understanding it and actually doing it were completely different things. And what makes it worse — I didn't even realize I wasn't. I genuinely believed "I'm not moving out of some need to be recognized."

What tipped me off was a small thing in the way I moved. Constantly reading their faces, asking for instructions, checking if this was okay. Every one of those was me, moving because I wanted to be recognized.

Once you see it, you can't go back. So — what do I do?

It's not about becoming someone who doesn't move from a need for recognition. It's about accepting, just as it is, the me that moves from that need. That's all. I felt the me that was tearing himself down. That, I think, was what I mean by feeling it fully.

Funny thing — once I accepted it, something changed. I didn't change what I did. It's not that I quit performing, either. Same site, same work, but... it was like I'd stepped back a pace and was watching myself. From there, the scenery looked different.

Take those people who'd shot me down so hard.

The one I clashed with most — look closely, and he'd been teaching me the work through his actions. He wasn't just some guy being mean. He ended up leaving the company. Another one, once I started moving without resistance, began teaching me things, and I could do more. And one more, these days, thinks of me as "a guy who got good at the job."

Before I saw it, those people were nothing to me but "enemies who won't recognize me." But once I stepped back and looked, I saw it clearly. They weren't enemies. And I think I served some role for them too.

The wish to be recognized hasn't vanished. It's still there. It probably never will vanish. But when I step back and look, what's in front of me looks different.

Before, any expectation aimed at me looked like nothing but "a chance to be recognized." But now, I can choose.

Do I do this work wanting to be recognized? Or do I do it honestly — thinking of the customer, choosing myself to become an asset to the company?

Only after noticing the me that moves from a need to be recognized, and stepping back to look, do I finally get to choose that.

• I could preach "don't act because you want to be recognized" to others — while I myself, more than anyone, was moving because I wanted to be recognized.

• The moment I accepted "I'm moving from a need to be recognized," my view shifted, and I could choose.

• What way of being do I move from. Not other people's judgment — I finally get to stand in the place where I live my own life.