Comfortable Chaos. Carolyn Harvey & Beth Herrild
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by the time and work of employees and its appetite is never satiated. The more it consumes, the more it desires. And the beast is not picky about the quality of its meal. It doesn’t matter if you slaved and produced a quality product or were asked to stay late for meaningless busy-work. The beast likes gorging on steak as much as junk food. The beast also quickly forgets you when you are gone — it simply seeks its next victim.
If you are a stay-at-home parent or are self-employed, you will need to envision your corporate beast a little differently. The corporate beast of the stay-at-home parent is the media-driven image of the super parent who maintains a spotless and inviting home while raising incredible children and serving as a leader in their schools and the community. This corporate beast can seem to come at you from all angles. It could be those telephone calls you receive asking for your volunteer time. Or it could be your own high standards for everything from housekeeping to
Halloween costumes. Just when you think you have mastered some aspect of the stay-at-home role, the beast tempts you with a new expectation and raises the bar.
For the self-employed person working from home or an office, the corporate beast is the pressure to succeed and grow. Even if you started your company as a means to better balance work and family, the endless possibilities of the marketplace beckon. There are the professional associations that want more than your membership — they want you to chair a committee. And there are the vendors and suppliers that urge you to use their marketing, web, or computing services with the subtle suggestion that what you have isn’t good enough. The American dream itself can even be a companion of the corporate beast.
Whatever your situation, know that you can’t tame the beast. You can only control how much it takes from you. If you are not constantly on alert, you will find the beast sucking your energy, your time, and, in the end, your life. Naturally you will need some defense strategies: the Comfortable Chaos warrior’s version of a sword and a shield. You must have a plan for those times when you are presented with some new task that will give more of you to the beast and leave less of you for yourself and family. You also need strategies that will help you put up barriers and defenses against the beast. We’ll cover this a little later in the chapter but first we need to get over a common stumbling block: fear of the economy.
Worrying about the Beast, Not the Economy
In our society, there is an incredible focus on the state of the economy. We are collectively addicted to checking the fluctuations of the stock market, the business section of the newspaper, and the plumpness of our portfolios. It’s not wrong to care, but it is a mistake to completely relinquish the quality of your life to the fate of the economy.
The fact is that the beast thrives in a boom economy as well as in a bust economy. Think back to the boom years of 1999 and 2000 when the dot.com phenomenon was at its peak. The corporate beast was ravenously hungry during this time. People were working up to 100 hours per week in the hopes of riding a star and striking it rich in stock options. They completely sacrificed their personal lives and practically lived in their offices. Companies responded with onsite dry-cleaning, meals, and concierge services, and were touted for making their employees’ lives easier.
Ha! Instead, most people gave thousands of hours to the beast and have nothing to show for it. Only a small percentage got rich and converted their paper money into hard assets before the economy started to slow and then nose-dived. Many others were victims of mergers and “re-orgs” that eliminated their jobs despite their hard work and dedication. And let’s not forget the stay-at-home spouses who essentially ran the household and raised their children single handedly!
Now flip the coin and consider the typical situation during a recession — employees get nervous about the potential of layoffs. Rightfully so, since the corporate world has become a slave to quarterly earning reports and quickly dumps people as a way to boost its stock value. Sadly, few companies recognize that real growth occurs through the long-term development of its people.
But for now, it’s important to avoid the trap of blaming the economy. The tendency to overwork and give too much of your life to a corporation exists whether we are in an upward or downward economic trend.
It’s also time to let go of the outdated notion that if you look after the company, it will look after you. We have slowly moved down the continuum, from our parents’ era where the company took care of its people, to today’s world where there are no guaranteed rewards for hard work. You are much better served by viewing yourself as “me incorporated.” Whether you work for a company, run your own business, or run the family, it’s only smart to package your skills and abilities effectively and use them to create the life you want to live. This doesn’t mean we suggest a pure “look out for number one” attitude. Instead, we advocate having a realistic picture of your needs and the needs of the employers and family members in your life, and find a way to work with integrity to benefit all parties.
Seven Keys to Controlling the Beast
Remember how we said that the second I in Comfortable Chaos is imperfect? The essence of controlling the corporate beast lies in acknowledging that no matter how much you do or give, it will never be enough. You will never attain perfection and the beast will always ask for more. The remainder of this chapter outlines seven strategies to help you shift your mindset away from the “I have to do it all” mode to a more objective approach.
Give up Perfectionism
Succumbing to the pressure of the corporate beast is what creates perfectionism and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Contrary to popular opinion, perfectionism is different than striving for excellence. In fact, true perfectionism is often the enemy of excellence.
Take the example of Teri, who is working on her bachelor’s degree. She is a pure perfectionist when it comes to her standards for herself and her grades. She takes the required classes for her major and maintains nearly a 4.0 grade point average and a place on the dean’s list every semester. When the opportunity arises to take a couple of advanced classes that are not required, she chooses not to take them for fear that she may not do as well in them and bring down her grade point average.
She is not alone in this tendency. Many perfectionists will shy away from risks and consequently do not grow and learn to become the best person they can be. Fear of achieving something less than perfection can inhibit and paralyze. It can also prevent you from having fun — a definite element of Comfortable Chaos! Many people won’t even try new sports or recreational activities that could enrich their lives because they are afraid that, at least initially, they won’t be very good at them. Their mantra is, “If I can’t do it well, I won’t even try.”
Perfectionism can also drive you crazy and cause you to end up feeling perpetually stressed and angry. You may actually perseverate on certain things while not allowing time to attend to other key priorities. The net effect prevents us from achieving excellence.
Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? You are working on a huge and high-visibility project at work. You stress and worry over it far beyond that point at which you could have said to yourself, “I did my best, I need to move on to other things now.” You continue working and reworking the numbers and your presentation. In the meantime you have missed deadlines and dropped the ball on several less important projects. The result is that the coworkers involved in the other projects begin to view you as a person who is not always on top of everything and not always reliable. In the end, the high-visibility project is received moderately well, but all the extended work did not pay off. Was it really worth damaging your relationships for the sake of an only marginally improved presentation?
This same phenomenon can occur in family and parenting choices. Let’s say your daughter’s class is having a party at school. You’ve been asked to bring in some treats on Friday. You know that Thursday is going to be a busy evening, but instead of giving a little on your standard of being the “perfect cookie Mom” and purchasing a treat, you stay up way too late baking these incredibly complex, cute little cookies. The next day, your daughter takes them to school and you never hear a word of thanks