Feeling Stupid
Don’t Make Me Be Better
February 28, 2017
Let’s Get Extubated!
March 7, 2017I'm not good at everything. I think I'm good at only a few things. But the truth is I'm really good at only one thing; Feeling Stupid, and being ok with it.
I was talking with a stranger, and they were going on about how great it must be for me to have worked in so many jobs and done so much. They said I must be really smart. Compliments make me uncomfortable as a general rule, but this one more so. Probably because it is so untrue. I'm not terribly smart; I am just comfortable feeling stupid.
Mom and me. Circa 1986
I am a critical care nurse by trade. I'm at my best when things get really bad. I know what to do when someone is going to die, and I'm confident to step up to try and stop them from dying. How did I learn this skill? I was not born with this knowledge. In fact, if you were to ask 18-year-old me if I would like to spend time with people who could die at any moment, I would have said never. After my mom died when I was 12 years old, losing people became a kind of toxic, emotional tar pit. Suffering great loss is a bomb in one's life, and the nuclear fallout afterwords can create all kinds of strange mutations. From hermit to philanthropist, timid to passionate, fearful to risk-taking. Anything you can imagine is some way trauma can change someone's worldview, and how the ash of the aftermath can be rich soil for all sorts of strange and unusual new growth.
In my case, I saw how we have very little time left. I watched and listened to dozens and dozens of people say how wonderful a person my mom was at her wake, and the seed that grew in me was a desire to become someone worth remembering. Then in High School, I wanted to be nice and help people and would spend time talking about their problems. Boyfriends and girlfriends, abusive parents, self-hate and suicidal thoughts all littered my landscape as I saw people who were really hurting. I was comfortable in that space, talking and listening. It didn't shock me that someone felt horrible, suicidal, or that everything was going wrong; because I felt the same way. A couple of years of being the go-to for crazy conversations and I found out I was comfortable being where others felt afraid and uncomfortable.
In College I studied to be a youth pastor, a journey that ended up in medicine for all sorts of simple and complicated reasons. I learned how little I knew, and learned that the more I learned the more there was to learn. I sat in classes with people who are now teachers, lawyers, doctors, published authors, missionaries, mothers and fathers, acclaimed chef's, entrepreneurs, triathletes and world travelers. Outside of school, I worked with video production specialist, photographers, and editors who are now running a successful production business. Friends opened my eyes to amazing cheeses, being homosexual, being non-white, being homeless, losing a baby, losing a house, and the importance of managing my debt. Life taught me, because I became a student of life, and I listened.
Hodson family. Circa 1988
“What I am great at is feeling stupid, and being ok with that.” - E. Hodson
Being a servant to others, that was the person I became because my mom died when I was 12. My superpower, I'm not afraid to feel stupid. When you feel stupid, it means the environment is a little bit beyond your reach. You know less then you should, and it's a struggle just to keep up. Try this experiment: raise your hand in the air as high as you possibly can. seriously, just do it....
Now reach a little further.
How can you do that? Seth Godin writes that it's because we are trained to hold back and are not willing to push through the dip. I agree, and add that it is because we don't know what we can do until we try. The limits we put on ourselves are nowhere near the limits of our ability. In my own life, I would say that the limits of what I can do in reality, are beyond only by what I can imagine. I never thought I would fly in a helicopter intubating an 8 year old, or have a marriage that would survive 3 years of not seeing each other more then 15 days each 365, or have a tattoo, or lose my mom, or ride a 100 mile century and the next day finish a full 26.2 mile marathon, or have friends who are willing to stand beside me when things get really bad.
So get used to feeling stupid. Get used to moving beyond your limited knowledge and worldview and current experience. Push yourself, until you can't, and then find others to push you. I am not an incredible nurse, no more then the next guy is an incredible CPA, or roofer, or bartender, or father. What I am great at, is feeling stupid, and being comfortable with that.
