The Struggle

I was reminded recently of the under-appreciated utility of struggle. I am neither a sociologist or economist, although I did at one time use my limited free electives in college to dabble in both courses. (Mainly because I had to- the free electives weren’t particularly ‘free’ for engineers. Anyway…) I think there are different types of struggle. Personal hardships, systemic racism, gendered violence, sexism, all manifest and cause struggles of different types, duration, intensity and so forth. Those topics warrant separate theses on those matters which deserve a more qualified author and researched perspective than I can offer. I will be writing about what I have decided to term as “task struggle”.

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Task struggle is different. In my early life, I recall much of it was expended on task struggles of one sort or another. Learning how to tie my shoes. (I struggled.) Working to improve my penmanship. (Still sucks.) Studying to solve differential equations. (Laplace transforms are a game changer!) And most relevant to what inspired me to write today, I was thinking about my early years entering into the construction industry contrasted against the home improvement/repair project I recently struggled to complete. Modern life and its conveniences have encouraged many of us to avoid task struggle in favor of time-saving solutions, outside service providers, and a myriad of other tech-enabled devices. As my earning potential has improved and the demands on my time have intensified (care-giving, working, volunteerism, race car driving), I, too, have leaned into relinquishing things that I had held onto self-performing. Even in writing this, I am a firm proponent of prioritizing doing the things that represent the highest and best use of my time (energy, resources, etc).

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I recognized last night, however, that there are constructive benefits to task struggle. Reflecting back to when I first got into construction, I’ve written previously about how I became a punchlist specialist while working in commercial interiors/special projects. The reality is that I came into the job with no prior hands-on experience building or repairing anything facility-related. Although I primarily worked in the office initially, I was increasingly sent out to cover night shifts, early morning demo shifts (2am/4am starts), and weekend work. At the outset, much of it was observe-and-report assignments. To this day, I don’t know if it was by design or not, but then I got the SHTF (fans are involved in that acronym) shifts and the “someone needs to fix this [expletive]” shifts. That entire progression was characterized by Struggle with a capital “S” because I was having task struggle, I was struggling to understand my career prospects, and I was struggling with where I was going to live, among other things. Borne out of all of that capital “S” struggle was my continued reliance upon and trust in my own creativity and ingenuity. It is true that some things in life have come easily to me. And in many instances, I’ve either been smart enough or lucky enough to come up with something on the fly in the moment to win the day. The moments that stand out for me most in my life though are the ones where I didn’t know anything else to do but to go and take a nap.

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If there was a super power that people who know me might attribute to me, it would be that I can (and do) fall asleep almost anywhere. It was in engineering school that I truly put that old adage of “sleeping on it” to good effect. I remember I got a super late start and then struggled to finish one of my senior design projects (Fall 2003) to construct a device that could accomplish a set of tasks. The day before it was due, I still didn’t have a working prototype. And by the time I got free from some of my other commitments, the machine shop was closed. I went out and bought my own Dremel tool, an assortment of fasteners, and some stock sections of metal, and then I took a nap. I woke up from a dream at about 2am with the idea of what I needed to do to finish the prototype. And I worked up until the class session later that day and demoed a prototype that performed well enough (not great) to earn a B. I napped through Spring semester; I napped through grad school; and, when necessary, I napped through those early years in my beat up Silverado.

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These days, I nap because we have three kids and the youngest still doesn’t sleep through the night. And I don’t struggle as much because there’s technology, and resources, and all the learning I’ve done over the years. I remember quite vividly what it felt like all those times I was struggling, but I haven’t allowed myself to feel that struggle or its accompanying emotions in quite some time. Then last night, I was trying to replace a water-damaged section of ceiling, and boy was I struggling! I didn’t have a full complement of tools at my disposal. I didn’t have a helper. I’m not as strong as I was at 25. (The heated seats in my truck are used for therapy, not warmth/comfort.) The negative thoughts started coming into mind.

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“This shouldn’t be taking so long.”

“Why is this taking so long?”

“Were you EVER actually good at this?”

“Honestly, you should just hire someone who is better at this.”

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I was able to shift to more constructive thoughts.

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“You could just wait until Dad is available to come help…”

“Well, even though we stopped here, we did get a lot of valuable prep work accomplished. You should feel good about that.”

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Then I decided to go to sleep. I hadn’t made up my mind whether or not I was going to resume the work solo, enlist the help of my Dad, or hire someone to finish. It didn’t really matter in the moment. I had struggled, and at that moment I needed rest. And while I rested, I came to the realization that I didn’t need a 25-year-old’s strength; I needed a 41-year-old’s resourcefulness. And after struggling (and taking a break), I recognized an opportunity to turn an aspect of my task struggle into an opportunity for task success.

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Basically the panel was heavy and kept getting hung up in the corner. I didn’t feel like I could sustain the weight and safely reposition and maneuver it into place to allow me to then start screwing it to the joists. I realized if I cleaned up and removed some more material from that corner section, I could actually use the spot where it was getting hung up to help me support the panel. (There was some plumbing and electrical stuff in the way there too, but, it just meant I had to work more slowly and more carefully and not be concerned about how long the task would take someone with more competence. All that mattered was that I took how long EYE needed in this moment to succeed.)

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I needed that task struggle to remind me of this. It was also a forcing function to invoke some creativity in devising an alternate approach from the first attempt to fashion a perfectly-shaped patch. I think this has implications for the world of work (which at least somewhat justifies why I’ve posted this here.) I’ve never been a fan of the approach to management where leaders talk about “paying your dues” or reflexively state, “I had to suffer through that; so should you/they!” I believe we are experiential creatures, and we learn by doing. I don’t believe that employees should be denied resources or support as some sort of sociological experiment to replicate controlled task struggle. People benefit when they are given assignments that present the opportunity to obtain reasonable stretch-objectives. I also think we can do a better job of creating the time and space for early career professionals to make multiple attempts at arriving at the needed solution. The opportunity to try, ?fail, and try again used to be a thing that you were afforded. ?They need fewer constraints and strict guidelines and more room for autonomy in decision-making and strategy. And if you’ve done this successfully, give them to space to work through the challenges without immediately swooping in to correct and save the day. What I’m describing certainly presents challenges to the ideals of consistency and repeatability. But unless you are in the business of making widgets, I think the greater investment (and return) will be in approaches that help cultivate resilient and resourceful members of your team.