This is the time of year college seniors seek my advice about jobs and careers. Sometimes I have good leads, often I’m clueless how to advise them. So I’m always looking for insights that I can pass on.
I recently heard a young preacher say, “If you know who you are you will know what to do.” It’s an interesting insight that is true. But it’s not the complete picture.
To understand who you are, you have to get out and do a few things. We learn a lot about ourselves by doing. We gain experience and talents along the way. All of this transforms us into different people.
Several years ago another pastor said to me, “The first third of my life was spent learning about Jesus. The second third was spent doing things for Jesus. I want this last third to focus on being like Jesus.”
I love that. When he was young he had no idea who he was. He spent a lot of time learning about himself and the world around him (and, obviously, Jesus). As he matured he started doing things, and this shaped him even more. Now he knows who he is and what he wants.
That’s not to say it always takes two-thirds of our life to figure out who we are. But for most of us it probably does.
So yes, I agree with the phrase, “If you know who you are you will know what to do.” But it’s the statement of a young man in his 30’s who still has a lot of life in front of him.
A more complete statement would be, “If you do you will gain knowledge about who you are, and if you know who you are you will know what to do.”
I have a junkyard story about this. It was a Saturday and my Dad told me to move all the transmissions to the other side of the shop. He hoped this would raise their visibility and trigger more sales. I thought it was silly because nobody impulsively bought a transmission. But I was overruled, so I went to work on it.
Rows of transmissions
Keep in mind the transmissions of that era weighed at least 100 pounds. And I was about 14 years old. It was a tough task. And a dirty one. By the end of the day I was covered from head to toe in transmission fluid (Mom was not pleased).
My attitude was what you’d expect from a teenager doing hard labor: I was grumpy and thought the job was ridiculous. Mid-day my Dad confronted me and asked why I was being so surly. Having had several hours to think about what I was doing, I bluntly said, “Because this is not what I’m meant to be. I’m not a manual laborer, especially when it achieves nothing.” Maybe I wasn’t that eloquent, but you get the idea.
Dad was not pleased. He said nothing but walked away. Later that day, after the job was done and the shop was closed, he said something I’ll remember a long time.
“Roy,” he began, “you are right that you aren’t a manual laborer. But you aren’t old enough to know who you are. Until you know who you are, you gotta do a lot of things you don’t like.”
Being and doing. We think they are separate things. In truth, they are part of the same thing.
By the way, all that work moving the transmissions? Didn’t work. Sales stayed the same. One of those rare opportunities for me to tell my Dad, “Told you so.”