RULE PLAY | Who made the rules?

Fit in, or fringe out? Passion or Profession? Who made the rules?

That’s the stuff my mind currently is grappling with....embedded in the macro-question:

What does it mean to do my work freely, without obeying rules I didn’t make?

Adhering to rules has been a challenge for me ever since first grade (My teachers note read: ‘completion of tasks with ease, lack of compliance, always daydreaming’) - too rigid, too unimaginative felt the system that is supposed to be the set up for a successful professional life. And so, heeding to what’s considered appropriate is the longstanding dilemma of my career. Perhaps, it’s being notorious for questioning any form of imposed frameworks, but my guess is, it’s because it goes against how I approach my work: I’m burning with passion for what I do. So much so, that it’s impossible for me to do without, as a recent project I did had proven - it turned out to be a great dead end.

The struggle is real. In the way big P (being professional) has been positioned - proper, polished, ever pleasant...and in such, devoid of passion... it just ain‘t working for me.
Being passionate means having strong emotions for, (and against something), is far from being up to code, and passion in/at work overrides any attempts to upkeep manicured public profiles, or say, deliver what’s expected.  
Passion breathes a willingness to expose oneself, bon-voyage security blankets and go into the wild. Except when it’s your work, with everyone watching. This, of course, only becomes amplified with the navel-gazing-dizziness we call social media.

So here we are, facing yet another battle of forces:

What am I allowed to show/post/say?
What must I not reveal?
...and what do I need to conceal?

Self-censoring doesn’t feel good. It breeds self-consciousness, and contrary to common belief, is never graceful. (You know, like your last date/business meeting/„highly curated” social event..where you just didn’t feel comfortable in ya own skin. )

When it comes to my work, what I do is not simply an accumulation of skills, knowledge, training. It‘s an extension and expression of who I am, of my life experience(s).

And this, I know is true for anyone creating/inventing/building some-thing - we live and breathe for what we do.

So why, I wonder, cut of arm and leg of our offering, when really it‘s all the parts of us that invoke and inspire our work?
Perhaps, this is one way we’ve learned to limit expression, (because bringing your whole self to the world is scary af, because vulnerable, because the world will judge/misunderstand/reject) and thus keep ourselves small.

But as we are figuring out this new age of work (please read Seth Godin, if you haven’t already), where we indeed are more free than ever to create, contribute and carve out a different (hopefully more humane) path, take the lead -  is tending to what is currently professionally/traditionally/culturally accepted supporting us in what we seek to do? In fully showing up in our passion?

Staying in the safe-zone is comfortable for our ego (fear of annihilation), and convenient for those who like to keep the status quo, no matter how outdated (fear of change).

BUT, what happens if we don’t deliver what is expected, if we create our own rules, divorce ourselves from should do’s and be inappropriate (who’s doing the measuring here, anyways...)?

This is my humble (yet passionate) opinion: We get to do our best work.

Whilst that initially is a fight you against your inner critic shouting: DON‘T DO THAT. DON‘T EXPOSE THAT. THEY WON‘T LIKE THAT….. It’s a fight worth fighting, imo.

Because when there’s nothing to hide, when we are stripped of all carefully crafted characters, welp.. we may find ourselves dismissed by those who rather cling to clean categories…but…at last (not least), for all that, we’ll get to do work that matters, the work we came to do (and thus honor our gift/talent/art), the work that helps someone/humanity/planet.

And, as an aside - propagating a narrative that says we should is yet another box we’ll ultimately have to crawl out of.

(Trust me on this one, ‘cause I’m currently crawling...)

So let’s play with the rules we didn’t make, shall we?

_____

If you're smart or rich or lucky
Maybe you'll beat the laws of man
But the inner laws of spirit
And the outer laws of nature
No man can
No, no man can — Joni Mitchell, The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey