by tashmcgill | Nov 10, 2015 | Culture & Ideas
I think they should tell you, coming out of the womb, that nothing will turn out like you expect. To avoid expectations at all cost. Expectations are the most dangerous indulgence of the human existence. In every facet of our lives, expectations have the ability to cripple, blind and curtail us. Expectations box us in and limit our horizons. There is a difference between hopefulness and expectation. Expectation is mostly commonly associated with a specific outcome. We expect the way things will go or ought to go for us.
We grow up surrounded by suggestion of what is normal, what is common, what is expected of us. We’re instructed in the principles of good behaviour and reprimanded based on how we meet others’ expectations of us. We create expectations of others.
Our greatest hurts will come from our unmet expectations; our relationships will break down when we cannot communicate, re-create or do away with our expectations of each other. Expectations become prescriptions.
Expectations prohibit creativity and innovation because they force us into pre-established paths and ways of doing things. Expectations push us towards norms which perpetuate cycles. And life goes on and on in this way.
Until something breaks. Until expectations fail to be met and you must hit the reset button.
I always thought I’d seen too many friends hit quarter and mid-life crises purely for the sake of some overwrought expectations; ideas about who and how they should be. So I made a plan; to not over-engineer my game plan. I simply thought ‘strategize for the half you’re in, see where you get to and then plan again.’
Can you see it there? Hidden in my plan to avoid creating expectations for myself, was an expectation. An expectation that there would be a second half for me. At some point, I’d find my half-time or a natural reset button.
I thought it would be family; in the traditional sense of a partner creating a natural segue into the second half. I have never been able to conceive of what my life might be with a partner. I am selfish but not selfish enough to assume that I could create a life or a dream big enough for two or two plus two – however many kids might come along. So I resisted making the mistake of trying to find someone who merely fit into the plan I had already made. I only ever planned a couple of years in advance, always thinking I would meet someone significant and we’d design the rest together.
I like the idea of co-creation; a mutually agreed collaboration of the future. A reset button for the second half of the game.
Now I’m at the halfway point – in time, at least. If I live as long again as what I’ve lived to date – that will be a long life. Perhaps too long. Not because I’m old, but really because I don’t want to live lonely too long. I have enough tolerance for platonic and familial love for another 20 years or so. Beyond that, I’m not convinced. So I face designing the second half now. Determining what strategies will reap the richest, deepest rewards and leave a legacy worth holding on to for someone, before I die.
The trouble with expectations is that they hide in plain sight until you trip on them. You can be doing just fine until you hit the one pothole you’ve missed every other time and you find yourself flying through the air, headfirst over your handlebars. You have to be grateful for it; each time you have to pick yourself up from one of those rough landings; it’s one more freedom to afford yourself. One more prescription you are no longer bound to. These prescriptions do not determine whether you were a failure or a success, as if those concepts have any bearing on what it means to be a human being. These prescriptions are social controls. Who cares if you never see the Eiffel Tower if you never really had any desire to go to France in the first place?
Freedom from prescription is essential. Examine every corner of your life for the hidden expectations (your own or others) that you are trying to meet. From how you raise your kids or manage your time or even what you share or do not share with the world.
As I think about the next chapter of my life; I don’t want to spend a minute of my energy or spirit in meeting expectations or prescriptions. I don’t want to risk not living every minute of the second half. I’m in brand new territory, undreamed-of country. It’s a time for invention and creativity. I want to live in such a way that I am fully alive and engaged with my greatest strengths. Devoting as much as I have into things that matter most for my legacy, not the legacy others would write or choose for me. I think as a woman, I’ve been even more susceptible to believing I have to take these expectations supposed on me by others and figure out how to make them work.
I don’t really care about money beyond what I need to live and spend time with those I love. I don’t want to spend a lifetime chasing a pay packet for something I don’t believe it; despite the expectations of what someone of my age and skill should earn. I want to continue to do all the things that take my fancy and come across my path. Naturally, I want the freedom to ask any question of spirituality, science or philosophy and mostly; I want permission to never be done – until my last breath. If I am incomplete til that moment, I will be delighted to know I left the world still learning.
What does the second half of the game look like? Less chasing the ball and much more running with it. If there is anything I’ve learned from the first half of the game; it’s that anything can happen. You’re just more prone to miss those opportunities if you’re still stuck on how you expected to turn out.
So what if your body isn’t how you thought it would be or your career isn’t what you planned. Who cares if you didn’t buy a house before property prices went up. A thousand tiny thoughts we have each day that push our lives into boxes we never intentionally set out to live in – that’s the claustrophic nature of expectations. Be free to not be Instagrammable or Pinterestable. Be free not to be Paleo or vegetarian. Be free to give things up or not – but do nothing because it’s expected of you unless you have set your own mind to it also. There are plenty of things in this category. Exercise for starters. Sex for seconds. Hospitality for thirds. Caring for your spirit and faith. Figure out to make these things a healthy part of your game plan.
For me, the second half of the game is freedom. The freedom to know myself and not just the shallow self others have tried to make me. Freedom from all the definitions that have been put against my name. Freedom to be my True Self. It feels almost as if I’ve spent the first half of my life learning just enough to really get me started – but it’s already half-time. I’ve spent the last moments of the first half dismantling the playbook I thought I had to follow. The good news is, I think you get twice, if not three times as much out of the second half.
by tashmcgill | Jun 29, 2015 | Spirituality, Youth Work
When I was let go from the youth ministry job I had loved so dearly, one of the Board said to me, ‘Well, it’s probably for the best, your business seems to be going well so you should probably just focus on that.’
It’s taken me seven long years to realise that he was accidentally right. With stumbling words that pricked and stung, he cut to the heart of it and said something so brutally true my idealist heart didn’t want to believe it. And in the end, the only reason it stung was because my pride was on the line. Now I’ve learned, it’s exactly what I need to focus on.
I was 15 years old when I drank the Kool-Aid and believed that my life would only be truly meaningful if I was a minister, a youth worker, a preacher or teacher. Then (and only then) I would feel satisfied and worthy. My vocation was only meaningful in so far as it was meaningful to the Church. You can hardly blame me – I sat through my share of sermons focused on how to become world-changing or the world’s greatest missionary. I did all the courses and quizzes on personality and spiritual gifts. I took every leadership course because you’re only as significant as your leadership role and I was inspired and intimidated by every testimony I heard, wondering how I was to ever live up to the expectations. Maybe not when I was 15 or 16, but by 17 years old, those inspirational programs were a weight of expectation I had set myself. And ambition. It was ambition too. That’s nearly 20 years of ambition right there.
So I did it. I’ve been youth worker, pastor, creative minister and worship leader. I’ve been in Christian ministry writing youth programs, training seminars, hosting radio shows and music festivals. I’ve done it all, relentlessly believing that I was pursuing meaning in making a difference. There are not many things I set my mind to that I don’t achieve.
What kind of significance was that? I’ve always been ambitious. I want to change the way people think – but changing the thinking of the middle-class, largely white, Western evangelical church through Sunday services and events? That’s not enough for me. It’s never been enough.
Here’s the truth: I’ve wanted it all and tried to have it both ways.
I wanted to be significant in the Church and to her people but I want it in the world too. In fact, I think I want it out there more.
My old friend’s hard truth stings me here. It’s not because the Church doesn’t please me. It’s my ego that wanted the Church to love me back.
Like an unrequited love, I wanted her to need me just a little bit more while I pursued the attention of the world. So much so that every commercial success I’ve had, I’ve tried to turn back into something for the Church. Because if the Church doesn’t find me worthy, how could God and what does any of it mean?
I’m finally accepting that we’re a bad romance because of me. It’s not that the Church doesn’t want me. The Church doesn’t always know what to do with me but the truth is I want more because the Church is not enough for me. I want the world. I want to influence world leaders and titans of industry whether it’s through the ad business, strategy, politics, TV or hospitality.
I want to be the place and person people come to ready for truth, ready to eat, drink, laugh and make decisions that really change things. I’ve got a long way to go. There’s just a spark of wisdom in me now but I intend to stoke a raging fire. The world is just beginning to catch alight.
Confession: I’ve spent many years being or trying to be bi-vocational because I’ve wrestled with my lack of meaning and significance outside of the Church. Slowly, I’ve done less and less inside the Church and the Church wants (needs) less and less of me. I’ve struggled to find a meaning. I’ve screamed, cried, raged and fought to be held on to, I’ve wanted so badly to find meaning there because I haven’t wanted to be one of my generation who have given up. All the while being almost ungrateful for all else I’ve been able to do. While I’ve wanted more from the Church, I’ve almost failed to see everything I’ve been given.
Still, here’s a little snippet of what I’ve been working on the past few years:
- Digital strategy and lead for New Zealand’s largest global exporter Fonterra
- I work for the greatest digital agency in New Zealand (Digital Arts Network), part of a global advertising agency (TBWA\Worldwide) that kick ass, two years ahead of my planned schedule
- I lead the Tourism New Zealand digital work including business planning, digital and content strategy on a daily basis www.newzealand.com
- I was able to work on and then lead the brand refresh for 100% Pure New Zealand, the longest running and most successful tourism marketing campaign in the world, in a ground-breaking piece of typography and fully integrated digital design system
- Oh yeah, I did get to work on this amazing Bible project thanks to Marko.
To Be Good At It
I want to be good at the business of Church. I can’t stand not being good at anything I set my hand to but truthfully, it’s time I wholeheartedly accept the advice I was given all that time ago. Focus on finding – no, making meaning in what’s in my hand.
A few clarifying statements
- I’m not leaving the Church
- I still love the Church
- I still want to influence the Church
- I’ll influence from outside, not inside
We revisit the things that matter our whole lives, over and over. So truthfully, pieces of this understanding have been emerging throughout my life for a long time. I’ve written about medicine men and chiefs before, knowing full well I’m a medicine man. I’ve been hoping by some miracle, I was still going to get the ego fix I wanted and the Church would chase after me with open arms, claim me as her own. So I’m revisiting again, embracing her again – no, not the Church, but She who is I. Wondrous, mysterious, powerful, wise and intense creature that she is. Medicine woman, earth mother and messenger.
I have wanted the Church to be my ahi kaa, the home fire. Here’s the truth though – I take my ahi kaa with me and any one who gathers around my table, my fireplace, my whisky circle or round my boardtable sits there with me. There are a few other fires I want to go sit beside too.
“Kia mura tonu nga ahi kaa mo te matemateaone”
Keep the home fires burning, so loved ones will always return.
The beauty is, I think the Church will still want to hear my stories when I come through her gates.
She’ll still like my provocative, challenging ways and wrestle with what to do and say.
I’ve got a long way to go. There’s just a spark of wisdom in me now but I intend to stoke a raging fire. The world is just beginning to catch alight.
Kure kwandinoenda, asi ndichakusvika chete – Where we are going is far, but we will eventually get there.
by tashmcgill | Jan 3, 2015 | Community, Leadership, Youth Work
I have this running joke with a couple of teenagers I work with. They are daughters of dear friends of mine but also in my youth work circles. Sometimes they come and hang out on the weekends because we’re doing youthwork-y things and sometimes just because I’m offering caregiver duties to parents stretched thin. Either way, we joke fondly about my role as a Weekend Mom.
These girls, and so many others that I am lucky enough to spend time with have become my ‘kids’. It’s a term of endearment for me, although other youthworkers I respect dislike the terminology. I get that, I really do but there are some young people who transcend my ‘regularly scheduled youth work’ relationships and become part of the fabric of life.
What It Heals In Us.
Often, I will tell my friends how grateful I am for the opportunity to express something of a communal motherhood in the role they let me play in their children’s lives. It is a gift to be trusted to walk alongside young people, particularly when they are the children of other wise, gracious and experienced youthworkers and teachers! I get to play mom when parents go away or even take them on holiday with me. We share in one another’s lives, even birthday parties and school events.
“The first third of your life is about learning, the next third is earning and the last third of your life is about returning.”
A wise friend shared this saying with me many years ago. I’ve learned the parts are not chronological. We never finish learning, therefore are constantly earning and we ought to, as soon as we have anything of worth, start to return investment back into our communities. So it heals something in all of us (the question of self-worth) when we discover we have something worth returning, worth giving back.
It’s what keeps me coming back to youthwork and investing in people, over and over again.
The Gift Of Being A Youthworker In Your 30s.
By the time you’re doing youthwork in your 30s, things are probably (hopefully?) a little different to when you were at college or barely out of school yourself. It’s slightly different too, if you are single. You have capacity, a different set of resources to invest as well as a few more freedoms than others may have. The other great thing about being a youthworker in your 30s, are the young people who have graduated and become friends. They offer plenty of input as to what was helpful to them and not so.
1. Experience counts for something.
I don’t believe that the longer you are around, the better youthworker you are. Being a good youthworker has to do with learning, practicing, listening and being committed to developing your leadership and skills. A graduating youth worker can be just as impactful as a long-timer, but likely in very different ways than a youthworker who has invested years in learning about adolescent development and the challenges that young people face.
For starters, hopefully you’ve had the chance to read, converse and grasp hold of learning opportunities when they come your way. I’ve been lucky enough to find a few mentors (and friends) who have expanded my practice, my understanding and my abilities.
2. Youthwork is an intentional lifestyle choice.
Lots of young adults get involved in youth work because it’s an opportunity to meet and work alongside other young adults. It’s also something of a common practice for young adults who have grown up in youth groups to graduate and work within those youth groups too. When you’re in your late 20s and 30s, regardless of whether you are a fulltime youthworker or a volunteer, youthwork has become an intentional lifestyle choice. You already know the cost of weekends, evenings, extra gas mileage and the impact on your social life and family. There’s likely to be more of a gap between your personal life and your youthwork than there was when you were younger, probably more consideration of balance between the two as well.
3. Resource is probably a little easier to come by.
Having a group of teenage girls over on a weekend afternoon is a lot easier now that I’m older, live with fewer people and run my household. I have space that I can easily make available to young people, young adults and other youth workers to meet, spend time, eat and generally feel at home. A big part of my Weekend Mom routine comes from the reality of welcoming young people into my home. They come and eat, make food, laze about on the couch and know the Wi-Fi password. Extra gas money, a few extra dollars for snacks and activities are all far easier to come by now. It’s no big deal to take them camping for a weekend, when I used to spend enormous amounts of time budgeting for such days.
4. Your role can be Mentor/Friend/Aunty/Mom.
It’s challenging for a twenty year old to play more than one or two roles as youthworker. Even as a twenty five year old, there’s still so much learning about your own ideas of being friend, mentor, caregiver to be done and rarely can you step into the wisdom and security of a parenting role. Mentorship changes over time. It can be instructional, simply learning how to be in certain ways. It can be a devoted do-as-I-do discipline. Or it can be more ancient – the practice of encouraging someone in how to think their way through problems and questions. The joy of being a Weekend Mom, as well as youthworker, mentor and friend – is the way those questions come about.
5. You know when to stay calm and when to escalate.
We all know that not every youthful crisis is actually a crisis. But you have to learn to read the signs carefully, because the younger you are the closer to those same heightened emotions and new experiences you are. That’s potentially controversial, but I find it anecdotally to be true. What seemed overwhelming as a twenty-something youthworker feels very approachable and manageable today.
Something We Should Always Do.
That’s it – the gift of being able to return something from how we are constantly learning and then what we earn. It’s not just money, but wisdom, experience and the capacity for grace and generosity. We should be returning it back into people as soon as we grasp hold of it. So I think, that after years of wondering and questioning if I am done with youthwork and years of trying to figure out how to do it well – I’ve settled on it. There are young people and families who have chosen me as their youthworker and at times, a Weekend Mom. What a joy, what a healing experience – that I’ve grown into someone who has something to offer beyond my youthful exuberance.
by tashmcgill | Dec 8, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Family, Youth Work
As a youthworker, I’m in a position to see a pattern emerging over the last 15 years. It’s more prevalent now than it was when I started working with young people and their families and by my observation, it’s a bit of a Trojan horse. It’s the desire to be ‘cool’ in the eyes of their kids, the need to be cool in every part of a child’s life. It looks and sounds great, but can be the cause of more heartache and trouble than you intend.
Advice For Right Now.
If your child is under the age of 21, don’t try and be their friend. Not yet. You have a job to do and they need you to do it. The study of adolescence would tell us that our young people are potentially still developing physically, emotionally and intellectually until they are 25 years of age. During that time of emerging identity, self-awareness and critical formation in the areas of sexuality, spirituality, vocation and passions – your children need you to take the role that can only be filled by one or two. The role of parent.
Friends vs Parents/Trusted Adults
Over their lifetimes, your kids are going to make a lot of friends. They’ll lose some, keep some for life. Probably make poor choices about a couple and they’ll make some of their best memories with friends. Friends are, the family you choose. But it’s precisely because you choose your friends (and the older you get the more time you spend choosing, or the more choosy you get), that a distinction applies. In choosing your friends, you’re never obligated to choose the ones that rub up against your rough edges but make you a better human on the way.
Friendship is often equally paired and transactional, there’s a mutual exchange of esteem and confidence boosting. Take away the esteem boosting and the value of the friendship fades. For starters, a parent’s relationship with a child should never be transactional. “You give me this, I’ll give you that.” It’s the core of dysfunction between a parent and child. Starting down this path is the opposite of building mutual respect.
Friends give bad advice from time to time.
Ultimately friends have less investment and often less meaningful context. During periods of potential instability, if you can build a foundation of reliable, secure advice with your young person – whether they take your advice or even like, won’t be able to refute the quality of the advice they are receiving. The offering of wisdom and the application of it are two very different things.
Few friendships ever fall of the sword of the greater good. In other words, your children need to have a steady and reliable person/s that will look out for their greater good during hardship and upheaval.
Friends don’t necessarily have the same values at a time when values are an important part of identity exploration. Having people in the life of a young person who can safely give permission to explore different applications of values and challenges to the status quo is vital, but those people are often not peers. Peers have equally limited experience and little alternative insight to offer into the process. Having people with similar values to process and discuss alternate possibilities with is strengthening.
Friends don’t always sharpen iron these days. In adolescent friendship, commonality is often the lynchpin of otherwise fragile emotional connections. Thus, iron sharpening iron isn’t a practice commonly found until early adulthood or when identity is more fully formed.
So what’s the role of a parent anyway?
I was visiting with a friend the other day and watched her young tween daughter lash her with drippings of adolescent behaviour – pushing boundaries to see how far she could go, sassing up the room with a mix of childlike comedy (quite enchanting) and whiny brat (less so). I watched my darling friend take a beating from her kid. It’s not intentional, but it’s nearly impossible to avoid the trap of our children influencing our self-esteem, but it’s ten-fold if we let ourselves get into the role of friend rather than parent. It’s natural to want to be liked by your kids, but it’s healthier to accept that how much they like you isn’t a good measure of how well you are parenting.
Children and especially adolescents desperately need parents who can provide companionship and wisdom along the journey, but in the unique and gifted role of Trusted Advisor.
Too often, parents want to avoid the stereotypical roles of Taskmaster, Bossy Bitch, Nagger, RuleMaker. Fair enough, they are not easy titles. But if you can push through the pain and pride-pinching accusations, there are alternate ways of looking at those roles.
Imagine being the parent who’s child never had a reason to doubt or question their advice. Who had been invited into the learning process alongside their parents? Who had positive frameworks for discussing conflict, disagreement and the establishment of their own, individual values. Most of the time, it’s not until much later stages of life that peer adults are capable of forming such competent bonds; yet these bonds and interactions are key for the development of healthy, well-adjusted and well-rounded young adults.
That’s why it’s so critical that parents accept the challenge of Not-Yet-Friends with their children and adolescents.
Friendship with your children is the privilege and honour bestowed on those who survive well, the teenage onslaught and adventure ride. It sounds crazy, but it’s true. As with a number of things, decisions that were yours as a parent of a toddler, become the decisions of the young adult themselves. Friendship with you and the nature of it will largely be their choice by the time they hit their mid-20s.
Like it or not, the level of friendship and trust they establish with you in that phase of life will be proportionately based on what they learned from the most recent phase of life and interaction with you.
Pursue parenting then, because it’s in parenting that you become a trusted advisor. It’s in your investment and commitment to them, you can demonstrate wisdom, perseverance, forgiveness and grace. It’s in your interactions and conversations that transcend a mere exchange of esteem building moments that you invest in the concrete foundation of the Parent-Child-Friends relationship.
As youthworkers, encourage parents to parent and not to try to be friends with their young people ahead of time. There’s a season and you shouldn’t rush it.
There are a few myths that need to be put to bed.
‘If I’m cool and can handle anything, then my child will tell me everything and I can be a better parent.’ Nope. You will never be cool enough that your child will tell you everything and why is your esteem wrapped up in it. It’s only building trust and a communicative culture with your child that opens the doors to communication.
‘It’s better to let some things slide and not say what I think, than to lose relationship with my kid.’ Strictly playing devil’s advocate here, but how will demonstrating holding back true honest feedback in your relationship with your teenager possibly help them learn how to be honest and true to themselves? If you want to teach your kids to deal with conflict well, you might as well start with the conflict you have with them.
‘I don’t really like the influence of that friend, but it’s not really my place to say.’ See above. There are limited opportunities to teach and demonstrate how hard but how important it is to offer truthful and graceful feedback to the ones we love. Talk honestly.
‘If I do what my parents did, I’ll turn out just like them and my child will have the scars I have.’No parents are perfect. It doesn’t matter if your kids are angels, scalliwags, 12 months old or 17 year old pop stars. There are no perfect kids, there are no perfect parents. Each child will carry both good and bad experiences from childhood, but learning constructive and positive communication will ensure that both build strength, resilience and character. Your children are not on a repeat cycle, unless you don’t engage in the process. They’re not perfect, neither are you, no one is. Therefore, there is freedom and grace to make mistakes.
In closing, my conversation with my friend was to encourage her to stand her ground. Friends don’t always speak in the nicest manner to each other, especially not when they are entering the teenaged years. I reminded her, implored her to take the higher ground and remember that she is the parent, she does have more experience, more wisdom and more intelligence than her tween daughter. That may not always be the case, but for right now, it is absolutely true. Therefore, there are many things in the day to day that require reframing. The simple recollection that there is a window where adults and children are not all equal. Equal rights, yes, equal concern yes. But equal footing – not.
Parents, enjoy the privilege you have to parent and don’t forgo it too quickly for the sake of friendship. It might sound and feel cooler momentarily, but it cannot deliver the same rewards as being the most trusted and faithful advisor of a young person.
by tashmcgill | Feb 7, 2013 | Culture & Ideas, Friendship
“Welcome to the age of self-management, it’s all on you from here.” It was said with a smile, but in a tone that makes the blood run cold. More truth held in the six words at the end of that sentence than I’d heard for quite some time. I was being given a choice about how to respond.
The infallible truth is, my life is a direct result of my choices and actions. Both poor and good choices construct a set of circumstances that I, and I alone, must take responsibility for. Regardless of how we interact with other individuals and how their choices may impact on us, our choices to respond to those circumstances lands the responsibility firmly in our own hands. Your life isn’t what happens to you, it’s how you respond. (more…)
As I think about the next chapter of my life; I don’t want to spend a minute of my energy or spirit in meeting expectations or prescriptions. I don’t want to risk not living every minute of the second half. I’m in brand new territory, undreamed-of country. It’s a time for invention and creativity. I want to live in such a way that I am fully alive and engaged with my greatest strengths. Devoting as much as I have into things that matter most for my legacy, not the legacy others would write or choose for me. I think as a woman, I’ve been even more susceptible to believing I have to take these expectations supposed on me by others and figure out how to make them work.