I am indebted to Helen Gilhooly who inspired this conversation.
When I applied to live and work in these United States nearly fifty
years ago, the rule for being granted a visa was quite simple: you had
to have a valid job offer which could not be filled by any current
American resident. Being that at the time
I was a systems analyst
for IBM (International Business
Machines) in the days before personal computers, cell phones,
and the internet, I'd accumulated an impressive set of skills. The
granting of a green card was a mere formality. I began
writing
some of the earliest interactive software in the country, work for
which I was skilled, enjoyed doing, and was in much demand for.
After a few years when my original consignment of work was completed,
the company I worked for moved in a new direction, and wanted me do
different work than I was hired for. It was work I had no skills for,
and did not enjoy doing.
My view
was that I was not hired to do that work.
Their view
was that it was the direction in which they were moving, and so I had
to. I resigned. It was all very heavy. They asked me to do an
exit
interview
- to which I agreed.
I was adversarial. Why? It was just how I was in situations like that.
When I had to defend myself or explain myself, I was adversarial and
righteous. I was always righteous when confronted. It was
what I had learned to be.
The interview
began, and I was a torrent of defensiveness, self-servingness, plus the
aforementioned righteousness. When I had said what I wanted to say,
the interviewer
just looked at me. All she said was "Thank you. I got it!", and
moved on the her next question. I was dumbfounded. She didn't argue
with me, criticize me, correct me,
resist
me, or defend the company. She just ... got ... it.
It was a new experience for me. My defensiveness won me no points. My
righteousness got me no acclaim. My self-servingness garnered nothing
of value. She just got it. To her, there was no
significance in it at all. It was just
my view
of things. It took the adversarial righteousness completely out of my
sails. So I tried again, with more righteousness and indignation again
emphasized for effect. Same reaction: "I got it.". It held no
significance for her, none at all.
I didn't realize it at the time, but that exit
interview
and the exit
interviewer
herself were pivotal lessons in
my life.
It was the first time I got (there's that
word
again ...) one, how much I relied on making things significant in order
to get my way ie in order to defend and justify myself; and two, how
the costs of making things significant far outweigh the benefits
(costs: staying small, closed, and immature; benefits: being right and
justified). Not only was that my first real confront with how I used
being significant as a means to manipulate, but it was also my first
encounter with a person whom I couldn't manipulate by making things
significant. That exit
interviewer
totally altered the course of
my life,
something for which I have never had the opportunity to thank her.
Later as
a graduate
of
Werner's work,
I completed this for myself. In my interaction with
the exit interviewer
I got clear I add significance to all situations in
my life,
and I resolved not to do it anymore. But it was only as
a graduate
of
Werner's work
that I got to see how
human beings
always add significance to all situations in life. It's
what we do. We're significance adding machines and we'll
always be significance adding machines. So the way I deal with added
significance, is: as soon as I notice it, I distinguish I added it.
Distinguishing I added significance, is my best shot at being free of
all the significance I add.
