I am a survivor.
My wife and I were at a church event this past weekend and during the
lesson portion of it they talked about the scale of success that
typically people find at church. It was a family ministry thing and so
we were talking about caring for kids and being an inspiration for the
kids and helping kids have that moment that helps them lock on to
staying a Christian once they get past their teenage years or getting
back involved in church once they cross from teenager to adult.
But the speaker said that there are three types of workers in family
ministry especially working with children. There's the "survivor" who
comes in and does what supposed to do and make sure everybody makes it
home safe and that's fine.
Then there's the "succeed" who does the lesson with the kids and has
the snack and keeps everything relatively in order and clean and has
that moment with the kids where they have a chance to learn.
Then there's the "person of significance" who makes memories with the
kids that they can lean on in the future when they start to drift away
from church.
After the lesson and during a quick five-minute break I told my wife
"I'm glad I'm a survivor." She got upset she and said I should try to
be more than that and explained how being a survivor isn't enough. I
told her that that is the very attitude that I have run into my entire
life that I am tired of. I told her that's kind of like the whole apex
predator thing where everybody gets hung up on the shark or the
Tyrannosaurus Rex or the ultimate predator that can hunt and kill
whatever. I said I'm an apex survivor - I've survived every day until
today and it looks like I'm going to survive today too and I'm happy
with that.
I'm thrilled to survive. But she continued she said no you should want
to be more than that you should want to be significant and I explained
to her that that's what echoes in my head is that I am NOT enough if I
do What needs to be done in a way that is acceptable and satisfactory.
That very attitude of "you didn't do enough" and "you should you
should have different feelings and want to do more than enough to the
point that you're significant."
It reminded me of when I was working and we had to rate our employees.
I was a manager and we had a scale that we had to rate our employees
on every year for their annual review of performance. The scale had
four points from left to right left. The first was "needs
improvement". The second notch was "fully successful". The third notch
was "exceeds expectations" and the fourth notch was "significantly
exceeds expectations". My employer spelled out what what each of those
meant. Many of the managers that I worked with and that worked across
the country rated their employees as a 4 if they just showed up for
work on time and successfully completed a shift.
I was taught as an employee that I was fully successful and I was to
sign the form and turn it in. I would be honest about my ratings and
all the young bucks coming up were all hyped about getting the maximum
raise that they could and they would get very upset with me when I
would rate them a 2 .5 or even a 3.
I had one of my guys that was awesome and he exceeded expectations all
the time and he got very upset when I rated him as a 3.0. exceeds
expectations. He argued saying "No no I I deserve more than that" and
I apologized and explained that I was rating him this way. When I told
him where I needed him to improve and he actually got pissed off and
went above my head two or three steps and everybody supported me. It
was funny but also sad at the same time because I got my 2 .0 and I
was happy. I was fully successful my entire career. That's a winning
streak it. I'm not competing against anybody else. I've learned that I
can't because nobody else is in my league and I'm fully successful I
survived everything they could throw at me and I thrived to the point
that I left on a high note on a positive with everything running the
way it was supposed to. I wasn't chased out with pitchforks or under
shadow of some accusations by an alien that I had discriminated
against them.
And so I survived. My wife still wasn't satisfied and she thought that
I should want more and I told her something that I've learned
recently: I understand that you're saying that because you think
you're helping me, but that does not help me. I do not accept it and I
will move on now.
And I did.
