Hesitation. As I sit in front of the computer trying to put this blog together, I find myself hesitating. Though I am a fan of being a reflective person, I am not a fan of putting my thought process out there for the world to see, critique, or judge. We’ll see where this goes.
In my masters’ program a few years ago, I had a very spirit-filled professor for a number of leadership classes. How spirit-filled? She spent one class having us all figure out our “number” and then told us our fortune based on it. Creepy, but there wasn’t a single person in the class that didn’t agree with the fortune she spoke of. Anyway, she was passionate about getting us to figure out who we were as people and leaders, and made us do some out-of-the-ordinary activities to get there. For one activity, she made us come up with our personal mantra—a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that are considered capable of “creating transformation” or “spiritual transformation.” She gave us a number of questions to guide us in the process, but assured us that it wouldn’t be hard; it would just come to us. So I spent the week going through the guiding questions, trying to force it, and coming up with nothing. I arrived in class Monday night with something that would do, but knew it wasn’t the mantra she wanted me to find. We went around the circle, saying our mantras and how they represented who we were. (I only remember one other person’s. He said his came to him when he walked into Starbucks earlier in the week: Espresso—strong and to the point. It described him perfectly!)
The circle continued to come my way, and right before I am asked to share, mine hits me. “A work in progress.” When I said it, my professor told me to keep working on it in the weeks to come. I had to clarify that that was my mantra, “I am a work in progress.” I claim to know a little bit about a lot of things, but seem to be a master of nothing. Though I appear (and often joke) to many as being a robot incapable of having feelings, I love learning and bettering myself as a person, friend, sister, daughter, teacher, employee, and citizen. Whenever one of my short-comings were made public, I simply looked at the person and said, “What can I say? I am a work in progress.” Does it mean that I shy away from responsibility? Absolutely not. Being a work in progress helps me give myself permission that I don’t need to have everything figured out, perfection doesn’t exist, and that real growth in any area takes time, energy, and a lot of hard, sometimes uncomfortable, work.
So as I enter my second semester of the doctoral program and am asked to blog about my “feelings,” my spirit-filled professor enters my mind and my mantra has surfaced once again (though it never really goes away)—this time as the title of my blog.
Great blog! It helps me to know that there are others out there with a similar perspective. Some people think they know it all or act like they know it all. To know that you know some things about many things means you are humble and wise. We are all "Works in Progress" but very few realize this. Never is one a finished product, always changing through the erosion of real-life and the rebuilding through added knowledge.
ReplyDeleteIt is funny to me that not everyone sees themselves as a work in progress. Do they really think that they've learned all there is to learn and that they know all there is to know? How sad it would be to feel like that's all there is, no matter where you've gotten in life. I have to admit that had I been in the class you were in, I would be tempted to come up with such an insane mantra that the teacher would be speechless when I said mine. Good thing I wasn't. :) It's fun reading these blogs!
ReplyDelete