Finding our role - or not - in a crisis

You know that moment at a Karaoke party when a particular song comes on. You didn’t request it, in fact you’ve been in a ‘risk-management’ role all night, cheering on others at a safe distance whilst you quietly sip your drink. But a familiar song comes on. No one else is going for the microphone. You know this song by heart, you love this song... 

And you loathe the idea of singing in front of others. But you know this one is for you. You can’t believe no one is jumping up. Don’t they love this song too?! 

No one would know if you stayed sitting there and let the awkward moment linger until someone flicks it onto the next track. No one would know your heart was thumping away, but you.

Leadership isn’t a performance, and it’s definitely not Karaoke (we’re all relieved…). The invitation to take on a role can be more subtle and complex. But there is significance in discerning which moment and role is for you, and when it’s best to let others do their thing. To not feel guilty either way.

Our opportunity

I believe our simple - but not easy - job in navigating our world is to be attentive. Attentive to what arises around us and within us, to have the discernment to know when it’s our time to lead a project, clean the bathroom, or go back to bed.

The measure of our creativity and resourcefulness as humans isn’t just about how much. How much we do, achieve, or produce. We’ve been in the production and growth racket for a while as a civilisation and we’re learning it’s a race to the bottom; our Earthly resources are running low. So if it’s not productivity, what else is life about?

That’s your choice. There’s a degree to which we all have some agency in how we experience this crisis, and a degree to which we don’t. Such is the nature of a crisis of this kind, where it is hard not to feel that something is happening ‘to’ us. It touches everyone. The drum beat permeates every room in the building.

We’re all having our own private and unique experience of it, and paradoxically we know everyone else is too.

Finding the ‘right’ role

There’s no judgment here. If you’re sitting in the back wearing noise-cancelling headphones. Up front managing the tracks, or trying to influence the person who is. Pouring drinks. Avoiding the microphone or singing all night...the event is happening and everyone has a role. There is at least some choice in how we take up and experience the roles we find ourselves in, and some consciousness we can bring to the roles we choose, to the extent that choice feels available.

Be attentive to your own part to play in the unfolding of things. Whether you’re on the bench or on the frontline, whether you experience choice or not, let the way in which you sing and take up your role come from a place that feels true inside of you. There’s no judgment here.

P.S. for those ‘on the bench’…

If you’re finding yourself on the bench, know that you’re in good company. Some of the most phenomenal people I know have either lost work or moved into hibernation. The most creative, insightful, potent humans. Who have a light behind their eyes that tells you nothing you say will shock them; they’ve seen it all, and are humble and wise enough to know they also don’t know the half of it. They are simply waiting for the tide to turn, for their role and resources to be mobilised, for the beat of the music to chime with their own.

A poem: Clearing, by Martha Postlewait

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose. 
Instead, create 
a clearing 
in the dense forest 
of your life 
and wait there 
patiently, 
until the song 
that is your life 
falls into your own cupped hands 
and you recognize and greet it. 
Only then will you know 
how to give yourself to this world 
so worthy of rescue.