“Hard work pays off.”
“The early bird gets the worm.”
“Without labor nothing prospers.” (Sophocles)
“No matter how hard you work, someone else is working harder.” (Elon Musk)
“...there really is no substitute for working hard. (Maria Bartiromo)
“Do or do not. There is no try.” (Yoda)
What?!?! What did Yoda say?? Do or don’t… it doesn’t matter if I just try? Do it or don’t. Do it, or be left behind. Do it, or watch everyone else get the accolades. Do it, or be seen less than...Do it, or be heard less than….Do it, or feel less than…
For the majority of my forty- four years, I bought into this mantra… do, dO, DO! I told myself, “The more you do, Jodi, the more people will see you, hear you, praise you, look up to you, strive to be you.” I come from a family of DOers. And, I am madly in love with these people; they are the hardest working, most integrity filled people you will ever meet. Not only do they put in the hard work at their jobs, but they pour hard work into their families, into their friendships, and most importantly into their relationships with Jesus. I was taught to work hard at doing whatever needed to be done to get the good grades, to make the sport team, to get whatever achievement, award, or recognition was being given out. I was taught to work hard at DOing…. DOing good for myself, DOing good for my family, DOing good for others- whatever that was or however it looked (chores, homework, workouts, service projects, sports, studying, cleaning, yard work, on and on and on…); just DO it (no credit to Nike here).
Growing up I absorbed the idea that hard work is good work; and it is, my friend, it really, truly is. There is not one single negative attribute that can be given to hard work. And, for most of my life this intense desire to DO, DO, DO served me very well. My school career(s)- High School and College- consisted of friends, social activities,getting good grades, making the cheer and track teams, being a part of Honor Societies, Student Councils, graduating from high school and college with honors, getting a Master’s Degree during my first year of teaching, becoming a Nationally Board Certified and Master Teacher, and on, and on, and on…...
I would be serving up a colossal dose of ingratitude if I don’t hit the pause button here and make it crystal clear that I love, respect, admire and adore my parents, my brother,
and my extended and current immediate family as well as my closest friends. The identity and blessing of being a member of this amazing group of “DO”ers has served me well, very well. Much of what I have today is due to the DO mentality that these amazing people taught, modeled, mentored and rallied around me to DO. They have driven, inspired and motivated me to DO more, to be better, to work harder. I have just always found myself surrounded by people that, for lack of better terms, Get Shit Done. And, like I said, I love them for this; and, I love myself for all of the accomplishments and recognition I have had in this life. BUT……
Look at that last statement… “I love me for all of the accomplishments…” what?!?! When did the accomplishments become more important than the hard work itself? When did the accolades begin holding higher value than the actual effort of just showing up and trying? They didn’t. At least not in the eyes of my parents, my brother, my husband, my family, my friends. I made the accolades, recognitions and the list of numerous calendar events, the what I was DOing the goal, not the hard work, not the trying, or the showing up. As a working mom of four; I have been torn between being able to DO it all like any good mother does and DO it all for my students, like any good teacher does. For a sampling of my madness, I will share with you that in addition to the incessant “need” to cook a full meal, get the laundry and grocery shopping done mid-week, because I mean who wants to do that garbage on the weekends (insert, who has time? We have 8 games, practices, social events to be at) I: coached, joined committees, signed up to help in my kids’ classrooms by doing tasks from home at night because I couldn’t be in their classrooms during the day (duh…. I was running my own classroom), signed up to bring in food for their teachers’ “thank yous”, used my personal days to go to their classrooms and read or chaperone a field trip,gave more than the mandatory “parent help hours” for plays, teach Vacation Bible School, volunteer in the church nursery, or whatever it is that was happening at the time, and be early to work, early to meetings, have the “perfect” paperwork, bring work home every single night, and sometimes lose time and presence with my kids because I “needed” to do school work. You see the predicament here; when at work, I felt guilty about not being with my kids; and when I was at home, I would be distracted by my work performance. I always felt that I wasn’t DOING enough in any of the places for any of the people. But I figured if I DID enough; that would be enough. So I was the mom of four and teacher that felt the more I signed up for the better I would feel, and the more people would acknowledge me, praise me, and maybe even envy me. Wow! Look at her! She does it all; and she does it all so well!
Wrong, so wrong in every single way imaginable! Why? Because I missed out on so much. While I was busy, running around like a chicken with my head cut off, doing all of the things, in all of the places, for all of the people, I lost a sense of “BE”ing. One day I started to realize that in all the “DO”ing, I was missing it, all of it. The days became a big blur of get up and do, do do…. And at the end of each day, I found I couldn’t remember what all I had actually “done”. Sure I had big, red check marks next to all of my “to do” items for the day, but did I do anything that really mattered, anything that resembled living and “BE”ing? Did I have a meaningful conversation with someone? Probably not, because my mind was 5 steps ahead on my next thing to do. Did I have things I was grateful for at the end of each day? Not really; I was too mentally and physically exhausted to serve up thanks for much of anything. Did I look into my babies’ eyes when they talked to me and listen, really listen? Nope. I was too busy whipping up dinner, doing laundry and checking work email.
This cycle of “DO”ing lasted way too long, and it took a monstrous wake up call from the Man Upstairs to get me off the hamster’s wheel. I was literally running in circles but making no progress with things that really mattered. I was doing things the same way; repeating the same mistakes. I was guided by a sense that motion, “DO”ing, is the important thing. I just needed to keep going. Until God made me realize I didn’t. He put a full press, hard stop on the madness. He loved me hard through this battle. He kept my eyes above the water, and He graciously showed me how my significance had been misplaced in my doing rather than my being. I was driven by the to dos; my identity and purpose was entrenched in impressing others, in pleasing others, in proving myself, and in producing with perfection. In this forced pause in my life (i.e., took time off work, sought counseling, and worked with doctors to find the right combination of effective medications),He showed me that I didn’t know who I really was.
I had to fall hard to realize my genuine, God given worth. I even put up a shield with my counselor. Not knowing her, nor having never met her before, I spent the first few sessions telling her everything I do; I mean everything. I wanted to impress her; I wanted her to admire me; I wanted her to say, “Wow! Jodi, you are something else!” As I cried through these sessions, and apologized for crying, which I now know one should NEVER do- feel the feelings- ALL OF THEM, she finally asked me around our third session, “Jodi, who are you? What do you like? What do you need? What do you do for yourself? What are your passions? What are your interests?” Uhhh…. I like to read, I like to be out in nature….. She quickly pointed out to me that what I was, and how I was defining myself was related to what I do for everyone else. My worth, my value came from “DO”ing more for others, being a “master of trades and Jack of none” I was labeling myself by what others thought of me. She told me I needed to just slow down, find myself: my faith,my worth, my identity, my purpose for myself, so that I can truly be seen, known and loved by the important people in my life. I needed to let down the guards, lower the sword, and just be me- truly me! My counselor, and I also call her friend, helped me realize that I was suffering from anxiety. I mean, I have always been a type A, OCD, driven by a motor kind of person, but I never thought of it as being anxiety. She helped me understand that I was suffering from Over Functioning Anxiety (also shared by Mel Robbins, Life Coach and author of The 5 Second Rule) which looks like doing everything for everyone, giving advice, taking on all of the responsibility, always helping, needing to be busy, and find it hard to sit still. Yep, that was me. And she opened my eyes to see that I had hit a wall which caused me to shift to Underfunctioning Anxiety: letting others do everything, asking for advice when you know what you need to do, avoiding responsibility ( I didn’t go here), always needing help (this was huge one for me- I didn’t even want Matt to leave the house; I was that scared), feeling paralyzed, and hard to get anything done. Yep, that was what happened to me.
Through God’s grace and with the help of an insightful, thoughtful, caring, empathetic yet hard core honest, counselor I found my unrootable, unshakeable purpose; a purpose that was not even close to the one I had been living. I realized my purpose was to find God, to love God, to listen to God, and to love the amazing humans he has blessed me with. Unlike the purpose of perfection I had pressed upon myself of pleasing and impressing others, this journey with God took me from being a “DO”er to actually “BE”ing. He used a seemingly insurmountable challenge in my life to produce perseverance. In all honesty, a character trait in which I was lacking. Because my life had been rather uneventful in a hard pressing way, and I was living the “life is good” slogan, I had not developed grit or perseverance. Two essential traits that He knew full well I would need like a flower needs water in the upcoming year. I began to understand that I was saying I was a woman of faith, and that I was not defined by what I do, but who I am…. BUT, I was not truly living this. I was putting on a good show. People don’t know you aren’t handling and managing everything “perfectly” until you show them, until you tell them. As well as being true to myself, I needed to be true to the people in my life. And, I realize now, why not be honest about it? We’re all in this together. We need each other. We need grace from others, and we need to give grace in return. God gave it to me during this struggle; He always has and He always will. Bottom line, I learned that God’s purpose for me doesn’t ever shift. That purpose is to surrender to Him, to serve him, to love Him, and to love His people. All the people...including myself.
things that really matter; Him being at the top of the list. He says, “Be still and know that I am God…” (Psalm 46:10). For anyone that may be struggling with anxiety, depression, or any other life battle, know that God will redeem your trial for His glory. Trust me, I know. I am sharing this story with you so that you may find comfort and hope in the hurting.
So what does this look like for me now? Well, I will be first to admit that I am still a “DO”er; I like to be busy. But, I have learned that I need to start every day by getting up before anyone else in the house so that I have quiet time- just me and Jesus. In this time with Him he has shown me that I don’t have to be worried over every little thing. He says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life” (Matthew 6:25-34). I don’t have to respond to every email; I don’t have to sign up for everything under the sun; I don’t have to cook a full meal every night (heck, my kids prefer it this way!); I don’t have to be the “Yes, Woman” to all requests for help, volunteers. I can choose to say no to that social gathering in exchange for a quiet night at home. I can step aside (aka keep my fingers off the keyboard) and let others step up to fill the SignUp Genius slots. I can let the laundry pile up; I mean, it’s not going ANYWHERE! It will wait on me. I can let the house be a smidge untidy- dig deep, Jodi, find the will to walk past those shoes, walk past those coats, walk past those clothes, that pile of “stuff” on the counter, I can leave it and let someone else get it, or not! But again, it will wait.
When I think about this very tumultuous time, for me, for my family I sometimes get fearful of what if it returns. The “it” I am referring to is a hard, long, scary, dark time of anxiety and depression. It sort of blindsided me; I didn’t see it coming. It just hit. I couldn’t sleep; I couldn’t concentrate; I felt “less than” at work and at home. I would not wish a trial like this on my worst enemy, but I am also so grateful God took me through this storm because I came out the other side for the better. I grew, my husband grew, our kids grew. I did not hide any of my struggles from any of them. It was an open book journey from the very beginning. God used this bad for His good. My kids learned that people will struggle in life; they,in fact, will likely struggle. And it’s okay to ask for help, to accept help. We all learned that mental illness is real, and there should not be any shame attached to it. It is just as much an illness as asthma, diabetes, allergies, etc. I was able to learn an imperative lesson because I used to be one to think “what do you mean, your anxious/depressed? What do you have to be anxious/depressed about?” Well now I know. It just is. It just happens. And it is a nightmare to live through. But, I
I have gone into brief detail of how God worked in painstaking ways to guide me, protect me, and love me through the greatest growth journey of my life. He made it crystal clear that life is not about everything I am “DO”ing, but that it IS about how I do it. How I “BE”. Not that I “BE” everything to everybody, but that I “BE” everything to the people and things that really matter; Him being at the top of the list. He says, “Be still and know that I am God…” (Psalm 46:10). For anyone that may be struggling with anxiety, depression, or any other life battle, know that God will redeem your trial for His glory. Trust me, I know. I am sharing this story with you so that you may find comfort and hope in the hurting.
So what does this look like for me now? Well, I will be first to admit that I am still a “DO”er; I like to be busy. But, I have learned that I need to start every day by getting up before anyone else in the house so that I have quiet time- just me and Jesus. In this time with Him he has shown me that I don’t have to be worried over every little thing. He says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life” (Matthew 6:25-34). I don’t have to respond to every email; I don’t have to sign up for everything under the sun; I don’t have to cook a full meal every night (heck, my kids prefer it this way!); I don’t have to be the “Yes, Woman” to all requests for help, volunteers. I can choose to say no to that social gathering in exchange for a quiet night at home. I can step aside (aka keep my fingers off the keyboard) and let others step up to fill the SignUp Genius slots. I can let the laundry pile up; I mean, it’s not going ANYWHERE! It will wait on me. I can let the house be a smidge untidy- dig deep, Jodi, find the will to walk past those shoes, walk past those coats, walk past those clothes, that pile of “stuff” on the counter, I can leave it and let someone else get it, or not! But again, it will wait.
When I think about this very tumultuous time, for me, for my family I sometimes get fearful of what if it returns. The “it” I am referring to is a hard, long, scary, dark time of anxiety and depression. It sort of blindsided me; I didn’t see it coming. It just hit. I couldn’t sleep; I couldn’t concentrate; I felt “less than” at work and at home. I would not wish a trial like this on my worst enemy, but I am also so grateful God took me through this storm because I came out the other side for the better. I grew, my husband grew, our kids grew. I did not hide any of my struggles from any of them. It was an open book journey from the very beginning. God used this bad for His good. My kids learned that people will struggle in life; they,in fact, will likely struggle. And it’s okay to ask for help, to accept help. We all learned that mental illness is real, and there should not be any shame attached to it. It is just as much an illness as asthma, diabetes, allergies, etc. I was able to learn an imperative lesson because I used to be one to think “what do you mean, your anxious/depressed? What do you have to be anxious/depressed about?” Well now I know. It just is. It just happens. And it is a nightmare to live through. But, I learned to be less judgemental of others and myself. My husband learned the importance of slowing down; and he learned that he is not Superman.. he can’t fix everything and he was never intended to do so. He could not fix me. He needed to sit with me, cry with, and encourage me to have the courage to get the help I needed. Our kids learned, because we showed them and specifically told them that we love them for them. For the gift they are to us. For who they are. For what they feel. We love them for them, not what they do or don’t,, not what they accomplish or don’t, , not what they win or don’t,, not any type of performance- just them! Whole heartedly - them! Matt and I realized that by our constant, incessant need to always be “DO”ing that our kids were inherently learning that trait.
It is a societal pressure that has been handed down generation, after generation, after generation. It was handed down to our parents, it was handed down to us, and here we are a generation handing it down yet again. This is no fault and no blame game to any one generation; it is just the way we are wired as humans and as a country. The questions when first meeting someone sound something like this: “Who are you?” “What do you do?” “Where do you work?” “What school do your kids go to?” Hello!?!?! Do you want to know my interests, my hobbies, my passions? But then, as parents, as teachers, as a society we turn around and ask the same questions to the children in our lives. From the time these precious babies set foot in Kindergarten, we start bombarding them with the same types of questions: “Where do you go to school?” “What sports do you play?” “Where do you want to go to college?”; and alas, the infamous “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Ugh…… societal pressure to DO, DO, DO and perform rather that just BE. The “season” of anxiety and depression (I call it a season, but it is an every day part of my life that I have to actively work on, and that’s ok) that I stumbled through was a walk of humility. I was humbled to the realization that I can’t be it all, I can’t do it all. And, guess what, I was never meant to. My work does not define my worth; my career is not my life calling it is my career calling. It is one piece of me; not the entirety of me. My value is not my vocation, for my vocation can shift. At this very moment, my vocations are wife, mom, daughter, sister, friend, and teacher. God uses these blessed vocations as a vehicle for me to BE me and to follow my faith call to love.
I now better know how to just “BE”. I am not going to lie; it is not always easy. I’m not perfect. It takes work, hard work. All good things in life require the work- not the “DO”ing work, but the “BE”ing work. Remember, it’s all about trying- show up for your life, live your life; you only get this one, and the people who know you and love you need you. The world needs you. You were created for a purpose. God made you, and He makes no mistakes. So now, I can sit with my “babies” (ages 17, 15, 13 and 11) and my husband and have real conversations. Conversations where we look into each others’ eyes and really listen. Conversations that linger over dinner longer than I used to be able to sit and look at the war zone that was my kitchen. For you see, my friend, I have learned that “BE”ing more present, “BE”ing more patient, “BE”ing more accepting, “BE”ing more faith filled, “BE”ing more relaxed is far better than running myself ragged with all the “DO”ing. I am living more freely than I ever have in my adult life, and my happiness shows it. I want to BE- the light, the smile, the hello, the eye contact, the “how are youI?” that makes someone else’s day a bit brighter.
I can simply BE. I don’t have to DO.
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