Late Shift Collaborative

I love the slowness of checking out books from the library. This one was not available through my library when it was recommended to me by someone in my psychedelics preparation and integration coaching training program, so I asked to be notified if my library obtained a copy. I had forgotten about it completely when the Libby app sent me a little message. What a wonderful opportunity to visit the spiritual while I am so enmeshed in Western behavioral health in my graduate program!

“It is better to fail at your own dharma than to succeed at someone else’s.” I’m putting this at the beginning based on some advice repeated in the book from author Annie Dillard who says, “[d]o not hoard what seems good for a later place…give it all, give it now.” So I am putting my major takeaway from this book right at the top. I have been repeating it and will likely continue repeating it to myself, my friends and family, and my clients. 

It IS better to fail at your own path than to succeed at something that wasn’t for you in the first place. I know this firsthand because unlike Jane Goodall and John Keats whose work was discussed in the book, I stubbornly resisted my dharma for most of my life. When I describe my law career as a failure, it usually rings false to people who are versed in my lore. I had an unbelievably varied career and came into contact with high-profile, interesting, heartbreaking, and wild cases. I was the managing attorney of a multi-state firm. I appeared in a huge number of courts and produced really high-quality writing and argument that I am still proud of. I helped clients in meaningful ways and became a true professional in the Steven Pressfield (War of Art – I will do an essay about this book too and link it here – it’s great) sense, occupying the territory of the profession. But my law career does feel like a failure to me, and this book, this mantra, “it is better to fail at your own dharma than succeed at someone else’s,” is why.  

I knew from the beginning of law school that I had taken a wrong turn, and that was 20 years ago. Do you know why I didn’t go back and correct it? 21-year-old Christina thought that she had sunk too much in costs to go back. Can you imagine a 21-year-old with a convincing sunk costs fallacy argument? A 21-year-old can declare that they are going to join the French foreign legion, and it doesn’t sound too drastic. So why didn’t I take a turn for 20 years as a I got wiser? I think the book explains that too. It was the success. I was doing interesting things, meeting interesting people, getting external validation, making money. I thought I was being an adult, but that turns out to be a losing proposition. Cope describes this beautifully with the example of his friend Brian who didn’t miss his dharma by that much. He became a Catholic priest when he was called to be a Catholic music minister. I will quote this section at length because it’s so good!

“Brian surrendered to the call heard not by himself, but by his parents and teachers. What resulted was much more serious than anyone could have imagined. It was the silent tragedy of self-betrayal.

Remember Krishna’s teaching: We cannot be anyone we want to be. We can only authentically be who we are. “The attempt to live out someone else’s dharma brings extreme spiritual peril,” says Krishna. Extreme spiritual peril!

If you bring forth what is within you it will save you. If you do not, it will destroy you.

And what, precisely, is destroyed?

Energy is destroyed first. Those shining eyes. And then faith. And then hope. And then life itself.

The increasing deadening of aliveness that Brian experienced as he went into the seminary is the very opposite of Jane Goodall’s experience. When a life is founded on self-betrayal, the habit of self-betrayal proliferates until we are at peril of not remembering who we are at all. There is a slow deadening of spirit as we try to pick up the burdens of adulthood without the energy of The Gift. Our work can be motivated by obligation, by hunger for the external rewards of accomplishment, or by strongly reinforced ideas about who we should be in this lifetime. But none of these motivations has the authentic energy required for mastery of a profession. So, all of these motivations lead slowly to a downward spiral that tends to crash, as it did with Brian, at midlife. Without the balm of real fulfillment there is a growing emptiness inside. Finally, it requires a heroic effort to simply go on with life in the face of this emptiness. The light in the eyes goes out.” 

Cope, 53

This passage also answers a question that kept me from changing professions for a not insignificant time. “If you are burned out now, won’t you be more burned out working and going to graduate school and starting all over in a potentially more stressful profession? How are you going to have the energy to make this change when you barely have the energy to get out of bed in the morning?” 

I don’t push faith or religion or spirituality on people. I think those are deeply personal and deeply personalized, but when I read this, I remember the leap of faith it took to make a change in light of having lost “the energy of The Gift.” I had no idea whether the energy would come back when I made the decision to go back to school and become a therapist, but it did come. I think Cope’s thesis is correct. By following your own dharma, you might fail, but you will live a life with meaning and energy. 

The connection to the INCUP post and ADHD is not lost on me here. I think those of us with ADHD probably are more prone to “the light in the eyes [going] out” because we are so motivated and energized by passion. 

My dad has practiced yoga at a studio for decades that is now called Arjuna. Arjuna, I learned in this book (despite having been gifted a copy of the Bhagavad Gita on my first day of college in Boulder by a Caucasian gentleman with dred locks), is the warrior hero who is mentored by Krishna (God). The Gita is the story of the conversation between Arjuna and Krishna that mostly takes place while Arjuna is cowering in fear in the bottom of the chariot piloted by Krishna. Krishna freezes time so the two can have a 2,000-page conversation. I am reminded of a religion lecture I attended in Boulder about the Book of Job and the importance of the fact that Job has a second-person experience with God in that book. Job speaks to God and God speaks directly to Job. I would love to hear that professor’s thoughts on the Gita and the impact of the second-person experience by Arjuna. (A quick search reminded me that her name was Eleonor Stump, and it does not appear that she has written about the Gita.) 

I think Cope’s book can be enjoyed without a full commitment to the teachings of the Gita. Cope used mostly white, Christian lives as examples of those following or being blown off course in their dharmic paths: Susan B. Anthony, John Keats, Henry David Thoreau, Longfellow, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Camille Corot, Marion Woodman, Beethoven, and finally, Harriet Tubman and Gandhi as well as the author’s friends Brian and Ellen. It sort of feels like the slate of historical figures my high school English teacher would pick, but the histories were fun and highly readable. 

This was a good recommendation, and I am grateful to the person who made it – even though I have forgotten who you are!