Dear Sharing Seekers:
Years ago, I found myself ‘between opportunities,’ which is to say, unemployed. In the early and naïvely optimistic days of my job search, I was approached by David Wilhelm, principal partner at Wilhelm and Conlin, a public affairs consulting firm in the Loop. Dave had started the firm shortly after he left the Clinton administration. He had been Bill Clinton’s first-term presidential campaign manager. (True political junkies may recall the ‘travel office’ debacle early in the Clinton administration’s White House.)
Having learned of my circumstances, Dave had a simple offer. He told me that perhaps one of the hardest parts of being unemployed was not having a reason to go out, or a place to be. He told me his firm had some empty space; he’d give me access to the building, and I could occupy one of the offices. I’d have use of the fax and copy machines, and he’d even cover postage for me to mail out resumes. All he asked in exchange was my participation in various strategy sessions and help with some of the grunt work on survey follow-ups. “You can come and go as you please,” Dave told me. “I just think it’s useful to get up, put on a suit and come downtown. When you’re looking for work, it’s good to feel like a grown-up.” He was right, and whether Dave remembers me or not, I will be forever grateful for his kindness.
One afternoon, waiting in Dave’s office for a meeting to begin, we started talking politics. It was early in the 2000 election cycle, and Dave asked who I liked in the race. I told him I liked Bill Bradley, the senator from New Jersey. Dave immediately said, “I like him too. He’s a great guy, and he’ll never make it.” Somewhat surprised at Dave’s immediate dismissal, I asked why he didn’t like Bradley’s chances.
Dave said, “Bill’s way too normal. He doesn’t need the spotlight. He’s a Rhodes Scholar from Princeton.” Wilhelm continued, “He’s got two NBA championships with the Knicks and he’s doing well in the Senate. He’s not hungry enough.”
I suggested that normal might be a good qualification for the presidency. Dave’s response surprised me: “No one normal can survive a national campaign. You need to be a little personality-disordered to get out there and keep pushing. The process does not reward normal people. You can’t just want the job; you’ve got to be beyond obsessed with the spotlight.”
I’ve never looked at politics the same way again. But each election cycle when I’m disappointed with the choices, I remember Dave’s words. We’ve created a system that does not welcome the best and the brightest; it rewards the most obsessed. We get candidates with holes in their hearts firmly believing that public office will satisfy their emptiness. If not the first term, perhaps the second, or the third. Perpetually seeking not power, but adulation. Each victory proves the inadequacy of their chosen drug, but like all addicts, they think the next high will be enough.
It reminded me of a conversation I had with a psychologist who once had a prominent practice in an office on La Salle Street. After several years serving as a therapist to investment bankers, commodity brokers and hedge fund managers, she closed her downtown practice, cut her fees by two-thirds, and opened a little office in the basement of her Chicago neighborhood house.
She told me her previous business model was doomed from the start. Her clients were extremely successful businesspeople who had arrived at the top of their professional ladders, but they felt like empty failures. They would come to her to explore their motivations, unravel their values and, because of therapy, they would eventually leave their lucrative jobs to pursue more meaningful lives, usually at much lower pay. “Once they became happy and well adjusted,” she told me, “they could no longer afford me.”
What are we chasing? Who are we trying to impress? If we require someone or something outside of ourselves to affirm our value, our meaning, our purpose, we’re emotionally cantilevered, dangling over a bottomless abyss of someone else’s attitude. That’s why Jesus offered to his followers not his approval, but his indwelling presence. There, from within ourselves, God’s presence settles our hunger, quenches our thirst and satisfies that perpetual longing. We don’t need success, or victory, or adulation. It’s that startling moment when we realize we’re already home.
Discovering joy without approval, I remain,
With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor