Some months ago, I loaded up my entire team from work (all 5 of us at the time) and headed north to Idaho. We were going out for field training on the product we were building at the time.
30 miles from the north border between Utah and Idaho, traveling 80 miles per hour, my truck’s engine revved unexpectedly and the truck lost both speed and power. We had just enough “juice” to get to the shoulder of the freeway without getting clobbered by a semi before the truck died and refused to start.
It was only 2 years old with barely 30,000 miles on it.
We sat there, wondering what was going on; why a perfectly good truck was suddenly dead on the side of the highway.
Occasionally, I will curse my computer for crashing unexpectedly in the middle of doing “important work.”
On this particular day, however, I didn’t jump out of my truck, kick the tires, and curse it for being a stupid truck. I didn’t stand there thinking, “You disgust me. Why can’t you be more disciplined? Other trucks don’t have this problem.”
In fact, tens of thousands of trucks did have “this problem” but that’s a story for another day.
I studied mechanical engineering in school but I’m definitely not mechanically inclined. I opened the hood of the truck that day to make sure nothing was on fire, and to my untrained eye everything looked normal.
“Yup. I’m pretty sure that’s the engine, and that’s where you put the windshield washer fluid.” I closed the hood satisfied that my four female employees individually and collectively knew more about engines than I did. Again, a story for another day.
Let’s suppose you’ve got a truck that runs a little better than mine did that day. Suppose you’re driving along one day and notice the truck is pulling slightly to the right or making odd noises or maybe struggling on hills (like mine).
You, like I, probably wouldn’t curse your vehicle. You might, instead, say something like, “Something’s off.”
Then, you’d start making either mental, digital, or physical notes:
- Has it always done this?
- When did it start? What were conditions like when it started?
- Is it worse under load?
Then, you’d take it to a mechanic who would tell you that maybe it’s a problem with the alignment or transmission. They’d take it and perform fancy (and not so fancy) diagnostic tests.
You wouldn’t shame your vehicle in hopes it would correct its behavior. There likely wouldn’t be any moral language. You might be angry about the failure, but you’d be mostly curious about what went wrong and what needed to be done to fix it.
What’s weird, however, is that we come along and do stuff like this all the time to ourselves:
- “I’m tired.”
- “I’ve gained weight.”
- “I haven’t exercised.”
- “I can’t get myself moving.”
- “I’m grieving and can’t stop.”
- “My body feels weird.”
And within about eight seconds, we begin to pass judgment. All those things I mentioned above translate into one thing: “Apparently I’m garbage.”
The strange thing is that I don’t actually believe this when I hear it coming from other people, either about me or about them.
If a friend told me he was exhausted, overwhelmed, had gained thirty pounds, hadn’t exercised in months, was sleeping poorly, carrying grief, stress, and responsibilities he didn’t know how to shoulder, I wouldn’t stare at him and conclude that his engine block was morally compromised.
I’d ask questions and stay curious. I’d also try to help him figure out what was going on.
Why is it that I can remain curious and open about other people’s struggles yet be overly-critical of my own? In my mind:
- “I’m tired” becomes “I’m lazy.”
- “I gained weight” becomes “I lack discipline.”
- “I feel overwhelmed” becomes “I’m weak.”
- “Something hurts” becomes “I did this to myself.” (To be fair, sometimes this one is actually true. Read about it here.)
Lately my body has felt off.
I’ve gained weight. I haven’t been running as much. I’ve been carrying stress, grief, long workdays, too much Diet Dr. Pepper, and seriously enough emotional freight to qualify for my own commercial transport license.
Almost immediately I started doing what I’ve always done. I didn’t become curious about my own situation. I became judgmental.
Apparently my “truck” lacks moral character.
This will be a “well duh” kind of statement but I’ve never once looked at a check engine light and assumed that my vehicle must be ashamed of itself. A check engine light has never felt personal to me. I’ve always understood it as information, like something deserves attention.
It’s possible that fatigue and sadness work like that too. Maybe weight gain, lack of motivation, strange aches, and all the other things we spend years hiding and judging are a lot more like dashboard lights than we give them credit for.
Truth: I’m not very good at this. My instinct for most of my life has been to assume that every “strange noise” means something is wrong with me rather than something happening inside me. That distinction matters. A lot.
Truth: I’m also learning that curiosity about the world, other people, and myself is way more useful than condemnation.
Trucks don’t become “healthier” because we shame them. Turns out, people don’t either.
Besides, if my truck and I are being honest, we’ve both been carrying more than our recommended payload for a long time now. Turns out neither of us was designed to haul everything alone.
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