Probably nobody else cares why my work life takes the shape it does. I feel defensive about it, which is something it turns out is taking me twenty years to get over. I don’t want to look like a flake. The first time I heard the phrase, “Jack of all trades, Master of None,” it was a knife to my heart. “Oh no,” I thought, “being curious about a lot of things is…bad?”
I am always mentally connecting the dots to answer the question, “Why I am interested in this thing now?” I know when I have found the answer when I realize that it’s because I am actually interested in the same damn thing over and over again, just taking slightly different forms.
Today I was listening to a podcast about strategic communications and I realized that this field is interesting to me because thinking about how to communicate clearly is a way of inviting others in (and into relationship). It is a kindness to make sure everyone in the room can follow the conversation and participate. It is a kindness to open the boundaries of what communication should look like so that everyone can do it the way that works best (here again, I am thinking of my former non-verbal students when I was practicing OT in a school). It is more fun to participate when the guidelines are clear. Every creative knows this; the way to make something is to start with just a few rules and then see what you can do within that construct.
So it turns out that thing called “strategic communications” can be about the same thing that always lights me up - inviting everyone in and remind us all that we’re creators.1
Ok, I know it sounds Pollyanna, and I realize it could be used in much less benevolent ways, but that’s not what I am drawn to