Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
All done?
Recently my daughter posted an NPR article on Facebook. It was brief and to the point. The author, Elizabeth Emens, is a law professor at Columbia University and is, no doubt, a very busy woman. She wrote about what she calls, “Life Admin”, those tasks that adults face on a daily basis, outside of our work lives. They take a lot of time. Paying bills, making calls, arranging schedules, running a household – they are with us, and they are ours to do. Unlike in a work setting where someone else gets paid to attend to these matters, they are on our plate every day.
She advises readers to recognize what type of Life Admin accomplishers we are. I’m going to paraphrase her theory that there are four kinds of adults: the Doer, that gets it all done and feels good about it; the Bustler, who gets it done but wishes it would all just go away; the Procrastinator, who puts it off as long as possible; and the Refuser, who looks the other way and knows that someone else will get it done.
This is all an integral part of being an adult. Ms. Emens encourages readers to identify our modus operandi and then offers suggestions for dealing with it. I thought long and hard about where I land in the four types. It turns out that like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I can switch among them depending on how each task ranks in importance in my mind. I’m not proud to say that I have been an expert procrastinator most of my life. But yesterday, when Jan asked if I would go to the store, I was also a classic refuser. She called me on it: “You’re just waiting me out until I do it.”, was the conclusion she drew. She is right.
Oddly, this article’s subject – the busyness of adulthood – is also being discussed in Richard Rohr’s daily meditation. The topic this week has been about living the second half of life in a way that affirms the best of us. The first half, according to him and drawing from Carl Jung’s work, is spend building up our ego, our sense of who we are in the world, our identity, our acceptability. I think that in this first half we are consumed with Life Admin matters, what it takes to successfully get from one day to the next.
I’m not sure that the second half of life is measured chronologically as much as it is measured spiritually. When we can set aside the “who” of us, we can begin to search for the “why” of us. We can look beyond the occasional trivia of Life Admin toward a deeper search of our purpose in life. We may continue to live as responsible adults, taking care of our business. At the same time, though, we respond more deeply to the call of our soul’s work. Our lesson lies in working with our “shadow self”, the parts of us that we have refused to acknowledge. We examine the rules we have lived by and evaluate how they may be holding us back.
My self-image is deeply affected by this work. With decades of life experience behind me I can identify the patterns that have kept me stuck as a procrastinator, or a refuser. I am grown up enough now to search for the next right thing that is mine to do, and to conduct that search in the light of spiritual truth. Much of this courage has come through regular attendance and participation in my 12 Step groups. I can trust that each of the Steps brings me closer to spiritual wellbeing. I know for sure that the wisdom I encounter in the rooms is life-affirming. People speak their truth with great courage and honesty and it is a privilege to be a witness.