The Job Will Not Save You

I’m pretty confident that this is my favorite clip on YouTube. Well, actually, maybe it’s this. Or this. But that first one, the clip from HBO’s The Wire, with the detectives arguing about the meaning the find in their job— that’s the one that speaks to me the most. In that scene, Detective McNulty is arguing that their unit is one of, if not the, best units in the entire Baltimore Police Department. Detective Freamon doesn’t contradict him, but instead challenges his unstated premise— that being “the best” detectives is a thing that can give your life meaning and purpose. “The job,” Freamon argues, “will not save you.” You need to have something else, something on your own terms, separate from external validation, that makes things worth while.

I spent 14 years as a Speech and Debate coach here in Indiana, 13 of them at one of the largest and most competitive programs in the state. I was an assistant coach for the first 7 years and then ran the program for the last 7. We saw a lot of success over that time and I like to think I made an impact on a lot of students. I also invested a lot in trying to maintain and built the program at my school by hiring assistants, training and managing parent volunteers, coordinating with faculty and administration, and developing websites and other technology tools. I organized trips to national tournaments out of state and hosted some of the biggest in-state tournaments every season. It was a huge investment of time and effort and represented a big part of my identity, personally and professionally. And then, two years ago, I quit. This was mostly because I needed to be able to devote more time to my growing family, but, to be honest, I wouldn’t have stepped down if I hadn’t been burned out on many of the things I just described. It was time.

This past weekend, I agreed to judge at the state speech tournament, my first speech event since I stepped down two years ago. I wasn’t sure how I would feel being back at a tournament that I used to manage and that my students used to excel at. I thought I might rediscover my passion for the activity and decide to get involved again, or I might be angry that things had changed or the team had fallen off in my absence, or happy to be surrounded by old friends I hadn’t seen in a long time. Instead, I just felt out of place. Things had moved on, changed, and evolved without me. There were people who were happy to see me, but they were also busy working at the tournament. There were new people who had stepped into roles that I used to fill and were making them their own. I could have probably carried on as the head coach at my school, hosting state tournaments for another 7, or 14, or 20 years. But at some point, the same thing would have happened— things would move on without me, and, at some point, my impact on the activity would no longer be felt at all. The job did not, and would not, save me.

Think about the other two clips I posted up above. One is my favorite acting moment of all time— Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the greatest film actors in history, at the peak of his game, overflowing with charisma, humor, and menace all at the same time. But Hoffman died over 10 years ago of a drug overdose at the age 47. The job did not save him, and his success did not “fill him up” as Lester Freamon could have told him in wouldn’t. Or the other clip I posted, the last out of the 2016 World Series, when the Cubs broke their curse and won for the first time in over 100 years. I have a poster of that moment up in my classroom, but, when I look at it now, I see something different than what I experienced when I watched it live. The players featured on my poster are Kris Bryant, who seemingly surefire Hall of Fame career was destroyed by injuries; David Ross, who was fired as Cubs manager after a few lackluster seasons; Ben Zobrist, who went through an incredibly embarrassing and public divorce; and Addison Russell, who was accused by multiple mothers of his children of domestic abuse and ended up leaving the country to see his baseball career disintegrate in Korea. That one moment of absolute success and unqualified adoration from millions of fans did not go on to define any of those guys. I don’t have any idea how happy or self satisfied any of them are or are not, but, clearly, the job did not save them either.

One of my favorite books of the last 5 years is 4,000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. The central premise of the book is that life is very short (4,000 weeks if you are pretty lucky, including many that already passed when you were a child a quite a few that you might get when you are too old or infirm to do much with) and that, unavoidably, you will miss out of the opportunity to do almost everything, and whatever you do chose to do with your time will probably stop mattering after you’re gone. If you devote your life to experiencing all life has to offer and have the ability to pursue that, like Richard Branson, you won’t come anywhere close to climbing all the mountains, playing all the sports, learning all the languages, mastering the different art forms, etc. And if you dedicate your life to greater purpose and fulfillment, raise a loving family, and make meaningful contributions to charitable causes, well, you end up just as dead as everybody else, and before too long all of those things will get swallowed up by the cosmic background radiation that is the passage of time. When I write it down like that, it might seem really depressing, but for me at least the idea has been very freeing. I won’t do all the things, and whatever “score” I run up— money, speech and debate state titles, thank you notes from students, hugs from my kids, thought provoking movies seen, etc— only matters insofar as I’m able to make it have temporary meaning in the moment to me and to people I actually care about. It’s not just that the job won’t save you. Nothing will, in that you’re never going to reach the moment where everything is what you want it to be a a big “Congratulations” or “Game Over” banner flashes across the screen.

Anyway this blog is about a charitable running project I’m training for. This July, I’m going to run 5 half marathons in 5 different states as part of a road trip out to the Pacific Ocean and back. I’m hoping it will be a wonderful, life affirming, paradigm shifting experience that reveals something about myself, the country I call home, and so on and so on. But whether or not it is, when I get home, I’m still going to have to take the trash out, I’ll watch the Bears lose more football games than they win, and before too long I’ll start looking around for another race to train for. I’m doing the project as a fundraiser of the National Diaper Bank Network, and I’m confident that the money I raise will do some immediate, measurable good for people who need help. But it’s not going to end poverty or diaper need— diapers are probably a good metaphor for what I’m talking about here because the need for them is by definition inexhaustible. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing the project. Lester Freamon’s argument is that you have to find something that matters to you and make it meaningful for you, outside of any external recognition or achievement. And that’s what I’m hoping to get out of this project. If you’ve read this far, I’d really appreciate it if you made even a small contribution to the project using the big Donate button at the top of the page. Thanks!