George Bailey and the Building & Loan

[pegkerr]

I've been thinking v. hard this morning about George Bailey.

It's all very well to say, "George, George, you must be true to yourself without feeling guilty about it. Don't worry about what others might think. You can't do everything, after all! Go off and be happy; build your suspension bridge, and don't worry about that little ol' Building & Loan."

Well, what about the Building & Loan? What about the money at stake, what about the people counting on that organization? Without George, why, can't you see that everything would fall apart? What can George Bailey do when there is nobody else who can step right in and do the job that he's been trying to do--even if he feels like he's a failure at it already?

For most areas of my life, I've always been just about the most responsible person in the room. It's just always worked out that way, and so people have come to count on me. All that is ever needed to be said is, "This job needs to get done and there's no one else to do it," and you can bet I'm your woman; I'll step forward and take on the burden. It's what I've always done. Repeatedly, I couldn't see any other choice.

I took on a responsibility, and it turned out to be, oh, five to ten times as big a task as I realized it would be. It's absolutely nobody's fault. I've done my best; I've given it more than I expected I would give--but still less than the job needs. It's not good enough. Partly the problem is that it's baffling to me to realize that I can't do it. Why, I always do what I've promised I'd do! How can I abdicate my responsibility like that? It's almost as if I don't recognize myself, as This Person Who Is Going To Let Everyone Down. How can I live with myself and do that?

And if I stop and say, "I can't do this," then I fear the consequences. Right now I can't see that there is anyone else to take on my role. Which makes the consequences if I step away my fault. Because, you see, I'm the responsible one. I always was, and I always will be. Even when I can't be. When you're always the responsible one, failure cuts even more deeply.

Comments

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Because I've been enjoying your LOTR icons, please let me say this:
Frodo didn't do what he was supposed to do either. Not at the end, not when everyone was counting on him. But he did everything he possibly could, and so did you, from the sound of things.

Time to step away from the edge, before you get the urge to put on the ring and just disappear.

Mary

[wilfulcait.livejournal.com]

I read your post and I recognized myself.

If you took on a responsibility that you cannot meet, the only thing you can do is 'fess up as soon as you realize it, and ask for help, or for someone else to step up and take it over. It may take two or three somebodies, if you are as overmatched as you think you are. If it takes three people to replace the failing efforts of one person... that's a good sign that you really COULDN'T do it, just the same as if you'd been hit by a bus.

Perhaps that's it ... perhaps you ask yourself, If I walked out the door five minutes from now and was hit by a meteorite, what would happen to this task? Because if it is really vital, the answer is that someone, or someoneS, would step up and deal. The reason you don't see those people now is because they are behind you.

Or the answer is nobody would do it, in which case maybe it isn't as vital as it seems. Would people die, if this did not happen? Would babies go hungry in the street? Or would it just be a huge inconvenience for people who would have to make a different plan to meet this need in the future? Few things are really vital, and even fewer are as vital as we Responsible Types think.

[wilfulcait.livejournal.com]

And then you should take yourself out for ice cream, because giving up responsibility -- even when you can't fulfill it -- hurts, and ice cream is cold and soothing.

[aome.livejournal.com]

Peg, you sound so much like me, it's scary. I could have written this post, although not as eloquently.

[kate_nepveu]

(Now, this is going to be easy for me to say in some ways, because even though I am also The Responsible One, I'm not facing real consequences at the moment. When I face dilemmas like this, though, I tend to get in a little rut of thought--which is actually a spiral, winding down on myself until I can't think any more. So in case a stranger's observation helps:)

I *think*, hard though it may be, it's more responsible to admit that you can't do it. You might not be able to think who could step up to the plate: but by not saying anything, you preclude the discovery of someone (or someones) who actually could.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, I agree with all the people who have said to you, "Don't worry about feeling obligated - do what's best for you." That might be the right advice, but it isn't always. And I must say that I was relieved to realize that you weren't talking about not coming to Minicon (my panels! my panels!).

I guess I'm agreeing with you that it's never as simple as "To thine own self be true," or "Take care of yourself first." Just as it's never as simple as "Finish what you start." Sometimes persistence and dependability ARE the most important thing. Other times, being willing to say, "I miscalculated; I can't do it," is the right thing.

For the most part, I agree with Wilfulcait. If you think you're the only one that can do it, you're probably wrong. Other people who could have done whatever it is that you're doing have probably been holding back, figuring it was all taken care of. Most of the time, when the indispensable employee quits or the indispensable volunteers resigns, somebody else steps up. Sometimes that opportunity is the best thing in the world for them, and for the project.

And you know what? If you couldn't come to Minicon at all, my panels would survive.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

The Responsible One is a role, not a person. The two are very easy to conflate, and it's very important not to do so.

Sometimes life thrusts us into roles, but we can choose to play them or not. We choose. If one remains in that role, one chooses to do so--which almost certainly means that one is getting something from being in that role. Only that person can decide whether the reward for continuing in the role is more desirable than whatever might be gained by giving it up.

It takes a very brave person to give up such a role.

No.

[amandageist.livejournal.com]

Your definition is too broad. Personal failure is a failure of being what you can be. You have pretty clearly articulated that whatever you are talking about is far in excess of what you can be. Being dwarfed by a role is not failure.

"Failure" as a self-applied term belongs in the realm of things you can *control.* If you realized your daughters had lice and didn't remove them all, or let them go to school infested, *that's* a failure on your part. If you invited sixteen people to a dinner party and didn't remember to cook--that's a failure. If you took too many course hours and made bad grades, if you forgot to drop a FedEx package off, if you misspelled words in a legal brief--those are failures.

Stepping away from a role you honestly cannot perform is not failure; it is responsibility. I submit that if you can't perform it sufficiently, your remaining there may be worse than freeing it for another to attempt. And another will turn up; or it will fall out that the role is not so vital to the sun rising as it seems.

Your problem is perception. You are allowing yourself to perceive yourself as a failure when the circumstances are beyond your control. Ask yourself--*why* are you clinging to this perception?

From one of my favorite awful books, a Christopher Stasheff volume in the Oathbound Wizard series, an abbess states to a redeemed witch, something along the lines of "All postulants think their sin the greatest ever done and will not look on a sister's face. Child, you know the folly of that--'tis foul pride's hidden side."

This is difficult to write--for I love what I know of you and hate asking the hard questions--and please feel free to tell me to shove it if I have gone too far--but you should stop experiencing the feeling of impending failure as an end in itself and seek the reasons you are making yourself experience it. Don't be trying to loom as large as a failure as you do as a Responsible Person; is there a reason to so punish yourself?

~Amanda, wondering whether to hit "Post Comment"

[sraun]

I'd go to whoever and say "I can't do this by myself."

Can you think of a way to split the responsibility up? Even if you can't maybe someone else can.

[pameladean]

I once sent Patrick Neilsen Hayden a long complicated angstful email about why my book was going to be late. Again.

He responded, "Pamela! Babies won't die!"

If babies won't die, I think, under the circumstances, you get to step down.

Pamela

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

I'm running out to tball for Harry but I wanted to say that even if you need to bail, we will still love you and we will understand. I'm sure a transition time is necessary, especially through next week, but if you need an end of the line marker, I'm only speaking for myself here to say there would be *no* hard feelings, but I really and truly do mean that.

[avengangle.livejournal.com]

I know how you feel. I'm trying my damndest to deal with this very idea -- that I can't be St. Augustine, or St. Paul, or wheover it was (I don't feel like grabbing my copy of Tam Lin to place the quote. (All things to all people, so that I might convert some.) As a matter of fact, I'm on drugs to try and deal with it. (Well, among other things.) I don't know that I can offer any advice under these circumstances, because I'm still not dealing with it so well, but you at least have my sympathy and compassion and stuff.