Hard Makes It Great. But Also...

In recent conversations with clergy colleagues as well as coaching clients, it’s clear that while many continue to feel energized for ministry–especially those who have recently started new calls–others are deeply exhausted, maybe even fully burned out. Some are exploring other career options outside ministry… in a few cases, way outside.

During a recent morning walk, I was listening to the Rewatchables podcast, in which old movies get revisited around a number of categories (what’s aged the best/worst, most rewatchable scene, overacting award). They were discussing the Penny Marshall film A League of Their Own, which is now 30 (!) years old and tells a semi-historical story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during World War II.

One of the nominees for most rewatchable scene was the one between Tom Hanks and Geena Davis when Davis’s character, Dottie, decides to leave the team before the World Series because her husband has come home from the war. Despite being a star player, Dottie says, “it just got too hard.” Manager Jimmy (played by Hanks) responds, 

It’s supposed to be hard. 
If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. 
The hard is what makes it great.

It’s a goosebump line for sure. Do a Google search for best lines from the film, and that one will be near the top, bested only by “There’s no crying in baseball.” 

Whether it’s raising kids, climbing a 14er, or finishing a PhD, the satisfaction we get from a task is often proportional to the difficulty. C. Thi Nguyen, a philosopher of games, says, “If you’re running a marathon, you’re trying to get to a particular point in space. But we don’t actually care about being at that point in space in and of itself, or we would take the easy way. We would take a lift, take an Uber, take a shortcut.” The challenge, and the constraints, make the experience gratifying. They give it meaning.

But I’d forgotten something important about Jimmy Dugan’s speech: it doesn’t start there. Here’s what Jimmy says to Dottie beforehand: 

Baseball is what gets inside you.
It’s what lights you up. 

It’s meant to be joyful. 

Maybe it’s the legacy of the protestant work ethic. Maybe it’s the fact that so many of us had to brute-force our way through the last couple of years, keeping it together for everyone else. But we focus so much on the hard-makes-it-great part that we forget the light-up part. The latter without any of the former is one of empty achievement. But the former without the latter is a recipe for burnout. 

From time to time, I’ll pick up a client who wants to work on time management stuff because they’re feeling overwhelmed. Certainly there are systems and processes that can help. But frequently, what’s out of whack isn’t the quality of the to-do lists or calendar. The problem is not time management, but energy management. Tend to the inflow and outflow of energy, and burnout becomes less likely. Hard doesn’t make it great unless the joy is also inside of us. Without that, hard is just hard. 

Yes, every undertaking worth doing is going to have some element of drudgery to it. But I continue to love and be guided by Howard Thurman’s great adage: “Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” I’m choosing to believe that, even this week, with the news out of the Supreme Court. The work ahead of us is hard, and it’s OK to be angry. Anger is some righteous fuel. But this is long-haul labor, and we will prevail by each finding that piece of the work that brings us to life.

I’m heading into sabbatical in a month, as are a good number of friends and colleagues (a lot of deferred sabbaticals happening in 2022!). The schedules for these sabbaticals are as diverse as the people taking them. But one common thread is that we all seem to be fumbling toward the same basic question: what lights us up enough to be worth our best effort?

I’m grateful and privileged to have the space to take my time with that question, here in my 51st year, my year of jubilee. But you don’t need a sabbatical to start asking it. I would love to hear your thoughts.

P.S. Of course she dropped the ball on purpose. #bigsisters

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What I’m Up To

Hope Notes returns with a conversation about CODA with my friend Shani McIlwain. Join us TODAY at 4 p.m. Eastern. Register. 
(And May 31 will be Turning Red! Register.) 

The latest Blue Room podcast will drop soon–Art and Music for the End of the World. Subscribe so you don’t miss it. (And have you given it a review?) 

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Link Love

It’s Mental Health Awareness Month. Speaking of hard things and lighting up, I’m running the Marine Corps Marathon to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and I’d be so grateful for your support.