CHAPTER 1

The First Shift:Into Your Own

But the meaning of life is not exhaustively explained by your businessactivities, nor is the deep desire of the human heart answered by yourbank account, even if you have never heard of anything else.—Carl Jung

The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something becausewe wish it to be so.—Louis Pasteur

Taylor Gattis was on the path. Better put, she was on trajectory. Asif shot from a cannon, she had blown through the best education herparents could provide, from the "right" kindergarten to the classy gatedcollege to the prestigious MBA program. And in between there hadbeen all the accoutrements necessary to produce a finished product herparents could be proud of: flute lessons, soccer camp, study abroad, theoccasional tutor when needed.

And now, barely thirty-one, Taylor could reap the benefits of theirinvestment and her own hard work. She was an account representativefor a Fortune 500 company, fast-tracked for a management role, and astar that seemed to be rising in step with her trajectory.

"There was never any question what I would do after college," shesaid. "It wasn't a decision so much as an assumption. I'm not sure Iever really thought about it, certainly not to the extent of consideringalternatives. Dad had made a good career in business and mom hadsacrificed some of her own interests to support that. I was smart andalways pretty much the 'good kid' who enjoyed pleasing them, and thatwas that."

But Taylor wasn't in my office to tell me how well things were going.The bureaucracy and politics of a large corporation were starting to gether down, and the brutal travel schedule was taking its toll. "Mom saysall I need is a 'fella,' but I don't think I'm capable of making anybodyelse happy right now, until I'm a lot happier myself."

And what would that take? "I don't know. I feel ... strangelydivided. It's like there's this part of me that really enjoys the workand camaraderie and travel and absolute thrill of nailing a deal; and Ifeel lucky to be making the kind of money I make at my age. But thebloom's coming off the rose. There's this other part of me that misseshaving the time to dig in the flower garden—misses not having a flowergarden—and wonders, How much longer can I do this? I'm scared thatat this pace I'll never have the life and family I've always wanted, butI'm terrified of what I'll lose if I leave.

"And besides all that, what will my parents think?"

Novice Adulthood

"Inertia" seems like a dirty word, doesn't it? We associate it with allthings sluggish, stuck, lazy. We forget that its meaning encompassesnot only the tendency of inert objects to remain at rest but the waymatter keeps moving in the same straight line until acted upon bysome external force. Such was the trajectory of Taylor Gattis's path, asit is with most people in their twenties and early thirties. Spurred byboth a burning desire to succeed and a yawning fear of failure, theyattack novice adulthood with a zeal and physical vigor that will rarelybe replicated in their lives. Onward and ever upward!

There is indeed much to be done: establishing oneself at work,sifting through love relationships, building a physical space apart fromprevious family and community, finding a circle of trusted friends."Hire me, marry me, trust me," he or she might be heard to say, "andthen let me prove myself worthy." Promotions, credentials, recognition,self-confidence, and a sense of "making it" in the world become vitallyimportant, followed closely by the sense of identity that comes fromestablishing a new nuclear family, becoming embedded in a communityof friends and colleagues, and having one's own "lifestyle."

And all of these efforts are vital parts of the "project" of establishinga foothold in the world. If we were to relate it to the old myths andstories of our culture, we would talk about this time of life as beingan initiation, or rite of passage, from the insular world of our youthto the independence and concomitant responsibilities of adulthood.In one way or another, each of us "goes off to the wars" and are forcedinto forms of self-reliance that most of us (fortunately) did not have toknow before.

The forward inertia of the young adult provides the sheer will andenergy to complete the task of establishing one's place in the world. Thisis no mean accomplishment, and society itself would cease to flourishif this were not the natural flow of life. But just as the summer solsticebegins the shortened days of the winter to come, that forward energycontains within it the very factors that will eventually slow or bring itto a grinding halt. These are the factors—as much a part of life's flowas the trajectory itself—that may shake the foundations of the projectto which you have devoted yourself so earnestly.

Consider Taylor Gattis. She may have achieved more than most inher thirty-one years, but like everyone else she entered novice adulthoodwith a set of values, expectations, and assumptions that were importedfrom an earlier time and place. And she, like practically all other youngadults, was as unaware of the borrowed nature of those assumptions asa fish is aware that it swims in water. "I'm not sure I ever really thoughtabout it," said she.

"No one can take the step into life without making certainassumptions," Jung observed, "and occasionally those assumptions arefalse—that is, they do not fit the conditions into which one is thrown."This is the stuff of the first foundational shift. It may begin with anagging feeling of discontent, a dissonance between what is experiencingin day to day life and some "little voice within" that keeps implying thatall is not as well as you had assumed it would be. There's a mismatch,though one is hard-pressed to put words to what is mismatched.

Here's how writer and educator Parker Palmer described what thatfeeling was like for him:

I was in my early thirties when I began, literally, to wake up toquestions about my vocation. By all appearances, things...