I have been listening to a number of Jordan Peterson's podcasts, and he usually repeats a number of the same principles throughout those varying conversations. Some of those ideas I remember from his books, but one I do not, which is: fulfillment in life is found through taking on responsibility. This is not something that I was every taught growing up, and didn't even appear intuitive or self evident when I heard it. But if it is true, it might explain a big about certain things I find myself dealing with.
I have not shirked responsibility in the realms of relationship and family. I am married and have son, I provide for my family, and I am a reasonably good father. But career wise, it could be argued, that I HAVE avoided taking on responsibility. And similarly in my ministry and volunteer work. Growing up, especially in college and shortly thereafter, I was acutely aware that stress led to problems: strained relationships, general business, and lower quality of life. This is true when taken to the extreme, but stress is really, in many cases, a different perspective on responsibility. I have definitely avoided being responsible for large undertakings, preferring to be second in command, advising those making the decisions, but not responsible for the outcomes of those choices. This was true at Bandito Brothers, and in my role at Apple, head of technology, or workflow, but not the one in charge of the entire project. In general, that has allowed me to better balance work with the rest of life, which I otherwise would have struggled with more. I have had time to invest in my marriage and family, I built my own house, and spend months on ministry trips. But I have probably leaned too far away from stress (responsibility) career-wise at the moment.
This is more obvious when looking at my ministry endeavors. I wisely avoid liability for my ropes course projects by doing all of that as a volunteer, but prior to that, my roles at camp had little official responsibility beyond being a counselor for a cabin of kids. I worked hard, and pretty much ran the camp from an operational perspective, but if anything went wrong, most of that was technically someone else's responsibility. With the church garden and food closet, I help out on a frequent basis, but I am not "on the schedule," responsible for any particular task or day. This is partially because of my inconsistent travel schedule, but mostly because I don't want to have to be locked into anything, or find people to cover for me if things change. Those changes have been pretty rare recently, so I definitely could have been doing more.
The result is that at the moment I find myself with too little that I am responsible for. Things have slowed down at both of my paying jobs, in that they don't have many tasks for me. And I don't have the initiative to start up larger projects like my freedom series to more fully utilize my time. So much of my time is currently piddled away on little tasks around the house, or worse, just wasted on various activities. I spend a lot of time playing with my son, which is great, but when he is in school, I don't maximize my use of that opportunity for more productive activities. And I have little outside of my own family that I am responsible for, and interestingly enough, I don't feel very fulfilled. My family is fulfilling in a certain way, which I expected. But I didn't anticipate that I would feel a need for more than that. But it makes sense, because God created us to do more than just that. And while you can't let things get out of balance the other direction and ignore your family, there is more to be done out in the world. I just have to figure out exactly what.
