From “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation” by Parker J. Palmer
Today I serve education from outside the institution – where my pathology is less likely to get triggered – rather than from the inside, where I waste energy on anger instead of investing it in hope. This pathology, which took me years to recognize, is my tendency to get so conflicted with the way people use power in institutions that I spend more time being angry at them than I spend on my real work.
Once I understood that the problem was “in here” as well as “out there,” the solution seemed clear: I needed to work independently, outside of institutions, detached from the stimuli that trigger my knee-jerk response. Having done just that for over a decade now, my pathology no longer troubles me: I have no one to blame but myself for whatever the trouble may be and am compelled to devote my energies to the work I am called to do!
Here, I think, is another clue to finding true self and vocation: we must withdraw the negative projections we make on people and situations – projections that serve mainly to mask our fears about ourselves – and acknowledge and embrace our own liabilities and limits.