The Second Problem With The Puzzle

Last time, I talked about the first problem with each of us working on our piece of the puzzle: How do we know which piece is ours? Here's the second, harder problem. How do we know that other people are actually working on the other pieces? This problem isn’t harder because it requires more thought, it’s harder because it requires more faith. Faith in other people, something that is often misplaced. Other people will let you down. They will screw stuff up, they will forget stuff, and they will straight up tell you that all that work you did was wrong and doesn’t matter. But still, we need to have faith. Faith that even if things are done differently, or not done at all, other people are holding those puzzle pieces. They are not ours to hold.

Part of this faith in our fellow workers is understanding that, if we try to hold too many puzzle pieces, it will be worse than leaving them in unexperienced or disagreeable hands. How many times have we seen some burnt-out leader callously ignoring new ways of doing things because they have been holding on to too many pieces for too long? Or watched an experienced leader refuse to pass those pieces along because the new people will screw it up? (And they will, that’s part of learning.) Or watched details fall through the cracks because someone needed to control it all instead of delegating?

This faith in other people is not optional. We can refuse and then what? Give up our piece because what does it matter? Or try to swipe the whole damn puzzle and die exhausted without anyone to take our place because we didn’t let them learn and fail and learn again? It is hard work to trust that what we have is enough for our part. But it is not impossible.

I’d like to offer up a few of my tips and tricks for restoring my faith in humanity. As always, feel free to ignore, or riff off of them, or take them, try them, and decided for yourself. But know this: they come from experience. Every few months or so, I get what the Victorians called a “case of morbs.” I get down, defeated, teary, oversensitive, and generally pessimistic about myself, everyone else, the universe and even my cat. It always happens after I’ve had an experience that dealt a blow to my faith in the goodness of humanity.

When I say goodness of humanity, I don’t mean our general altruistic, parents-love-their-kids schtick. I mean, my foolish idea that if we all come to the table, offer what we have, try to be flexible, well, then we can figure out hard situations. Mostly it works, but sometimes it…doesn’t. Someone refuses to even come to the table, or to go the extra inch even when you’re going the extra mile, or they take what you offer without bothering to thank you, let alone offer anything back. Sometimes it just gets me down.

First, I wallow. I watch sad movies and eat yummy food and wear comfy clothes and listen to hipster music while gardening. It really, really helps. Then, I ask my people, my closest of close people, to remind me why the world isn’t shit. I make them tell me about kind people, and good experiences, and times when we all came together. Then, I do some godawful physical exercise to tire my brain out so much it can’t think for awhile. And then I remind myself that I don’t do this work for some quid pro quo. I offer it up in gratitude for all I have been given and hope that I may leave this world a better place.

And then I still take it easy for a little bit. Because faith in other people is hard. Trusting them to do their part is hard. And I’m allowed to rest after doing hard things. But I’m not allowed to rest forever.

How do you maintain your faith in other people? How do you rest when you’re struggling?