Value failures of high-minded righteousness.

From the mouth of a Vegan wearing Doc Martens.

I have difficulty reminding myself that alignment is a long game.

Drop into to my Sunday late afternoon: I am on my phone, thumbs burning up the Googling on a random research project. This particular evening, we find ourselves with your fair heroine HOT on a search for the ideal Vegan beauty routine. This involves search for said brand, cross referencing with PETA, search the product selection, filling the cart, reading reviews of my selections, pausing and doing the same with the numerous other brands. I love these kinds of worthless endeavors.

Hours pass and so I raise my head, eyes crossed and deeply consumer-satiated – without a penny spent … yet, and also very anxious. Why? Because I like my current, not environmentally egregious, routine. Yet, I am deeply shamed as is, upon an early deep research project that occurred earlier that day, on animal exploitation and beauty industry exploitation.

That is where the trouble lies. Yes, there is issue and crime with animal cruelty, but bigger and more how I am, in this very honest instance, choosing to track myself against the moral thermometer of an external arbiter. As if another entity holds the keys to my alignment AND that there is no room for variance. Sheep shearing is horrific, but so is binary rigidity and self-punishment.

OK, on that - I hold a truth deep in the better parts of my soul that ills are not to be compared. Each of us experiences disparity in line with and too beyond the bounds of the terms of our lives. There is violence that measure high about inconvenience. Narrative comparisons are not the point here – what is, is this: I need to lay the Hell off or I might miss why and how I am giving a shit in the first place.

It is about wanting to be good without knowing what “good” is in the first place. Interesting, huh? That even in saying that I am inferring that “good” is a very specific thing. Like the end of a moral equation, an answer acquired via a series of invariable steps. Oh, and too that it is only one thing that is “good” in the first place?! As if geography, history, chronology, identity have no impact – “good” is an imperial thing complexly free of context. In that, unbelievable logic: “Good” is not killing animals and recycling. For shame: caring for a family farm, Kosher living, Indigenous heritage and traditional living, Benedict’s need for minerals and the health benefits of an omnivorous diet, not to mention maintaining the health of captive Wildlife or Wildlife in general, lifesaving medicine – and maybe even my lipstick.

Let us take this discussion from “good” on to “success”. How does that land with you? What about the “right” way to do an interview or a “proper” resume? Marketing strategy, content composition, networking, social media and whatnot. Funny, huh, that generally the only folks who say so are those presenting you with a service menu to address and training you on the above? Words like “confidence” come in to play. As that being “a thing” you will gain once you have taken on said professional processes, products, and thereby execution. Whew, all done! You’re good. What?! Don’t have a job or enough clients to keep you out of you parent’s pocket? What?! Could it be that “right” or “good” or “success” is not at all a linear thing. That results are not in marriage with properness?

Well, true. However, it should be noted industries and kindnesses hold influence expectations upon discourse. It is not appropriate to apply with a resume on a napkin, or to an executive post in an industry of which you have no experience or seek to cover a professional service you need licensing for but do not hold. These “hoops” are cultural, and safety inspired. To ignore them is not experimental, it is straight up disrespect. Likely that goes without mentioning, nevertheless it is best to reign things in as we move to talk about “rouge within reason”.

That comes down to technique – learning the standards and rituals but being open to finding one’s way within them. This comes down to respect. For instance: I respect Veganism and animal rights justice. I can learn about the “rules” held by aligned and foundational organizations and persons. Add to that, I can lend the same respectful scrutiny to my present and historical choices. Why do I shop where I do and on what? That lipstick, a consumer and beauty hack, what’s up with my loyal (or causal) wearing of it? Do I know any thing beyond its marketable attributes? Or its origin and production? Could I investigate that -since I am still here as the sun sets and I turn my tea over for wine, the future of the evening still steered to ardent web searching – without the bias? Oh whoa! Well, Hell no, right? PETA, you have all my grace and judgement-free acceptance, for you live in a World beyond my insular consciousness. Looking to myself I measure and evaluate and curse and blame the failures or over emphasize the wins.

“Is my resume good enough?”

“How is my pitch deck?”

“Website?”

“Pricing structure?”

I get those questions all the time. Hitting back, I ask: You tell me? Or, why are you asking? Have you not been hired? Did a client or pal give feedback, and did it seem applicable to you? Where are YOU in those documents? Do they seem like you?

Sure, I will point out inaccuracies but beyond that, everything I will speak to falls under believability. Does it sound like you? Is this the professional I know that I see in these pages? That is why it is so damn important for a coach to be a deft and expert assessor of the person behind the professional that hires them. Not your shoe size, but the why and wherefores of you and your approach to your work. Why YOU do or seek to do this thing, and if we don’t know what the “thing” is, who is the “you” that seeks to do anything at all? Add to that, we need to kind of dig on each other. I am not talking cuddling, per se, but believe and trust. On both sides.

Back to the lipstick: downstairs, my husband starts grumbling about dinner and Netflix options. Could I like this woman seeking to hurt less and be more courteous? Could I appreciate her desire to live tenderly towards others, and too be reasonable and look good? If I did, might I ask her to step back from the damn lipstick? Say: “Hey, what about we look at choices in general and your person beyond one small tube. Are you seeking to get off the hook for assumed cruelty by picking the proper matte? Or is this one of many representative purchases that might fall under a larger appreciation of alignment?” Over-focusing can create blindness and trying as cavalier living. Tunnel vision anyone?! You bet!

Your resume could be more representative, branding altered to meet a trend, sure. These are all relatively minor choices. The bigger view is who is the person making them and to what end. There is the market and there is the us – get what you want from that discourse and know the marketing is doing the same of you. In that the REAL task is to seem to be true. If you dig on that Natural but not Vegan choice – the question comes down to ethics. Not “right” or “sinful” but ethical in the totality of the person who washes her hands and starts washing vegetables, saying over her shoulder out of the kitchen, “Yeah I know it is 9. Come on man, it’s Sunday! You want a beer or something? Add a goodie to the queue, grub ETA 30 minutes!”

From the den: “I’ll be two in by then.”

“Start your engines.”