Jimmy Beh

A couple of weeks ago, I had a student come by my office to talk about creating a portfolio that she needed for her senior capstone project. For the sake of this article, let’s call this student Charlie. Charlie also wanted to make sure that her portfolio could be used professionally after she graduates this May. I suggested that we start by building a website, which would serve as Charlie’s online portfolio, and then brainstorm some projects for her to post there. However, I found out that she already had an existing website, AND she had already uploaded all of her graphic design, photography, and writing projects onto it.

I kind of looked at her and thought to myself– so what do you need me for? 

But as we began to talk more, Charlie shared that she was really struggling to figure out how all these different projects fit together. She felt her work was too “all over the place” to have any clear vision– and she was hoping that I might be able to provide some advice on what her vision should be. 

So I thought about it for a second and instead of sitting there throwing out random visions that I think she might like, I asked her a question–  where does your inspiration for these projects come from?  Charlie thought about it for a second and then began to talk about how much she cared about storytelling. She really enjoyed the ability to create a convincing narrative and bring attention to people and subjects that need a voice. This answer and the rest of our conversation focussed more on Charlie’s motivations and relationship to her work and less on her finding the ‘right’ vision.

How many times have we all done what Charlie was doing in the beginning of my meeting with her? I cannot say how many times I have wanted my friend, mentor, parent, or coach to just give me the insight that I thought I needed. We often want the answer or direction given to us– we want that comfort of certainty. To know we are doing the ‘right’ thing or that we have chosen the ‘right’ path. 

Unfortunately, this is not how our world seems to work. Such right or wrong thinking is entirely insufficient when it comes to wrestling with our most important questions. Who am I? What do I want to do with my life? Who do I love? What is important to me? How do I deal with setbacks or loss? 

Carl Jung seems to agree: “the greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.” 

This seems to align with my personal experiences and my work in Higher Education. Any model or advice that promises a linear path forward– or the ability to give you the answers to what you find meaningful– is seriously misguided. There is nothing wrong with goals, but we must integrate the whole of our experiences as we work toward our goals, and cultivate a sense of awareness around how our experiences influence our relationships. This whole process is never linear and requires a certain amount of humility so that we can be open to growth Jung is referring to.

Accepting that the most important questions in our lives are unsolvable is really hard for us problem-solving Americans (or really anyone who has grown up with the perspective that there is always a right answer). In fact, just hearing that there is not a ‘right answer’ to our deepest questions might make some people ask, what is the point?– or how do I win? I guess the short answer is that you don’t win. Nobody really wins. Winning is not the point. When we remove our competitive attitudes from how we wrestle with these big questions, we begin to see that perhaps the real reward comes from descending into the depths of our relationships and experiences rather than the climbing to new heights of achievement. From this perspective, achievements become the by-product of how you live your life and not the reason you live your life.

What I am hopefully communicating is that we all need to allow our relationships and experiences to influence the way we work toward our goals. To bring this back to the student story I shared above, Charlie came into my office having fully accomplished ‘the what’ of her work while simultaneously being completely out of touch with ‘the why’ (her relationship to her work)– and as a result she did not know how to make meaning or sense of her work. When we put the what in front of the why, our accomplishments tend to feel meaningless (or we cling to them so tightly in order to prove our worth).

My intention in sharing Charlie’s story with you is not to just point out her shortcomings. The reason I used her as an example is because she was willing to take the difficult first step in addressing this issue– which is admitting that the way she had been thinking about her work and interests was no longer working. She felt disconnected and wanted help. What marvelous vulnerability she showed– admitting to me she felt lost. I certainly was not that vulnerable or brave as a college senior. 

In the end, I hope I was able to offer her the time and space to explore her relationship with herself. To give her a glimpse of what it might feel like to take a break from the college grading system and be the author of her own meaning making. To give her permission to have the vision of her projects come from her relationship to them. 

In an attempt to summarize this piece (which never really works but here it goes anyway), I want to use a quote by Jean-Paul Satre that makes a lot of sense to me at this time on this subject. Sartre says:

“In a word, man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines himself.”