If you know me in real life or have worked with me for any length of time, you know that I’m a fixer. I like the hum of things running well; when something’s off, it catches my attention. I will focus on this until it’s been resolved, and I am known to roll up my sleeves and get straight to work fixing things.
There’s a little bit of perfectionist in me too, okay, more than a little bit, which means it’s very hard to step away and say something is finished and done. Take this essay, this post, as one very concrete example. I write my content calendar about two months in advance and spend time outlining each post and adding to what I want to write about for each topic.
This week the topic was not really a good one, I have no qualms stating that I ask an AI agent to review my recent posts and help me come up with topics that try to fit together. Sometimes it’s spot on and the words come easily and it all fits. Sometimes there’s a mismatch. The topic was “what needs to run without me” and I believe my intention was to convey how to build resiliency in my business as well as adding automation. Some thoughts on why and how I choose tasks that don’t need 24/7 attention when you don’t have that availability for any reason … and how some automation enables me to spend more time with what I find important: family and community.
I started writing with that initial prompt in mind, and it didn’t go very well. I struggled to get a draft written. I couldn’t relate to my own prompt; I went back and forth trying to figure out what direction to take and how to edit it. It hasn’t helped that this is a week of Big things, to put it mildly. Labor Day was Monday, today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and tonight at sunset, a new year begins in the Jewish calendar.
This week, I stepped up to help with some preparations at my synagogue, where my volunteering isn’t taken for granted but they’ve had to remind me I can’t and shouldn’t try to do it all. It’s not the first time this has happened, I’ve had volunteer sign-up positions literally named for me! I once showed up very early one morning at a volunteer opportunity where no one knew me, helped with two different tasks before 9 am, and then found myself running a half trail marathon1! I was available and no one else was able to do it. So I did. That is an extreme example; however, it showcases how I can’t help myself and step up to fix things.
My innate need to fix, well, everything, isn’t limited to volunteer opportunities, this has been true with client projects as well. No matter what my client agreement reads on paper, it’s taken me a very long time to have courage to say no. I would add on little fixes, small edits, and turn a small discrete fix into a 5 hour overhaul, and still only bill for the initial agreed upon project. This has needed personal, professional, and client relationship maturity to happen. And I still will try to fix things that aren’t on the spec sheet.
Back to what you’re reading now, I tossed out many drafts. Some had very personal anecdotes that took hours to write. Others were driving the reader to follow my path and felt flippant. I struggled to find what felt right. I set this aside and after a day, sat with yet another blank page and took more time to try to find the words I wanted and create something I could feel confidence putting my name to and letting the world see. These aren’t the exact right words. I’m not settling with close enough, but they are the words I’m confident with right now. I could spend many more days editing, and sometimes, what I can give right now is what I have.
I’m pretty sure there’s more than one lesson in this. Ones I should be learning and working on as I approach the yamin noraim. There’s likely a great chassidic teaching and probably mussar lesson or two in there, but I’m not going to go down the rabbit hole of trying to find the exact right ones. I don’t have all the answers. Nor do I have all the fixes. I do the best I can, with the knowledge and skills I have at the time to repair what I can. And this knowledge is where I think I will find the space to rest. It’s a responsibility to know how to fix things as it is also a responsibility to know when to pause. Shanah tovah u’metuka. May you have a sweet year, a sweet season.
- I was the Sweeper. This meant that I was in last place, the final runner, that was the entire point. I had to run at a set pace and when I passed, those helping at street crossings, water, and first aid stations no longer needed to man their stations. I tracked whether there were runners behind me and indicated if they chose to still complete the race without support or would be DNF (Did Not Finish). I did not collect trail marking flags; that was a separate volunteer task! ↩︎
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