Very organised by surprise

On doing better

Have you ever had your worldview changed by a random remark?

This summer I found myself producing a play (and fell in love with the entire crew, you guys are incredible ❤️). The play had a number of complex transitions, and to make sure we nailed them I prepared "transition sheets" that we refined after every performance:

A table of Dishes in the Fridge stage transitions

We went through an updated version one evening, making sure everyone was on board, and one of the actors remarked:

man, you're so organised!

come on, I'm not, I just use those crutches because otherwise my disorganisation would ruin everything

…haha what, that's what being organised is

Months later, I still regularly come back to that moment.

Somehow, I didn't realise that I essentialise my own qualities and performance. I'm either smart, or I'm not. I'm either a good person, or I'm not. I'm either organised, or I'm not.

I believe in people changing, which means I can hope to transform myself, but any given trait is something that I can grow into, something upstream of what I do. The daily struggle to get better at something? I'm striving to get better at it, to change myself, which is still upstream of actions. Actions flow from the kind of person I am, and to sustainably change the way I act I need to change the underlying qualities.

I was thinking I need to get better.

It is this self-essentialism that got called out by my friend. In my head, if only I were better at organisation I wouldn't struggle to keep things on track all the time. But in reality the internal struggle doesn't matter1, the only thing that matters is what I make happen. If I invent crutches for things to stay on track and they're effective, that's what "being organised" is.

I keep reminding myself of this since that night. No one can see how much I struggle to do something. There is no essence of being something, the only thing that matters is what I do.

I (only?) need to do better.

  1. Maybe other people I consider better than me at something struggle as much and just never show it? An intriguing thought! ↩