I Thought Being Good at Something Meant I Should Keep Doing It

I've said some version of this sentence for most of my life.

I'm good at it.

That doesn't mean I like doing it. The strange part is that I kept doing it anyway.

I was a great negotiator long before I knew that's what I was doing.

As a child, I thought I was simply good at smoothing things over. Between friends. Between my siblings. Between people who couldn't quite figure out how to get from what they wanted to something everyone could live with.

Somehow, I became the person people turned to. That followed me into adulthood. Holidays were a perfect example.

Everyone had an opinion. Who would host?  Where would we go? What would we do? My kids wanted one thing. My sister and her family wanted something else. Me? I usually wanted something considerably simpler than anything being suggested.

Somehow I became the negotiator. Thanksgiving at my house. Christmas at yours. We'll go to this restaurant this time. I'll cook for everyone next time.

There.

Solved.

Everyone was happy.

Or happy enough.

Which, when you're negotiating family holidays, is probably the closest anyone gets to a unanimous victory.

I was good at it. So I did it.

At work, the stakes became considerably higher. There was a conflict once between a customer and a salesperson. My boss was telling me what was happening, and I suggested something they might try. He looked at me.

"I don't know if they tried that. Call them and see if you can help."

Sure.

I called. I helped. The problem got resolved.

That should have been the end of it.

Instead, I had apparently auditioned for a job I didn't know existed. The next time there was a difficult conflict, I got called. Then another. And another.

Somewhere along the way, I became the person you called when something was broken. Not literally broken. People broken. Relationships broken. Customers angry. Teams  disagreeing. Situations escalating.

I hadn't created any of these problems, but somehow I was expected to walk into the middle of them and find the exit.

And I did.

I was good at it.

I also hated it.

I tried explaining this to my boss once. I told him I really didn't like being called in for all the "emergencies." Surely there was someone else he could call. He looked at me like I had started speaking a foreign language.

Ironically, English wasn't his native language, so we'd actually had those moments before. This wasn't one of them.

Then I saw his eye twitch. I knew that twitch.

What I had just said did not compute.

"No one can do what you can. You're such a natural. It doesn't even take any effort from you. Why would you ask me that?"

I couldn't tell whether he was offended or genuinely confused. Probably a little of both.

What I remember most, though, is that sentence. It doesn't even take any effort from you.

Except it did.

He saw what happened once I entered the room. He didn't see my stomach in knots before I got there. He didn't feel the weight I carried knowing I was walking into a conflict between people I sometimes didn't even know, with an expectation that I would somehow make everything okay.

He didn't experience the dread before those meetings. He saw the smile.  He saw the calm. He saw the conflict settle. He saw the outcome. My reputation had started entering rooms before I did.

I became known for being very good at this.

So I kept doing it.

That's the strange thing about being good at something. People notice. Then they ask you to do it again. And when you do it well, they ask more often. Over time, your ability becomes your role. Then your role becomes an expectation.

Somewhere in there, nobody remembers to ask whether you actually enjoy it. Sometimes not even you.

For years, I confused being capable of something with being responsible for it. If I could fix it, I should. If I could make something easier, I should. If I could get everyone to the other side, why wouldn't I?

I had an answer for that question long before I was willing to listen to it.

Because I didn't want to.

That didn't seem like a good enough reason.

Then the company I worked for was sold. My boss announced his retirement. I knew what came next. New ownership. New shareholders. New expectations. New rules. New relationships to navigate. New games to learn.

I'd been through enough change in my career to know I could do it again. I could survive another acquisition. I could learn the new players. I could read the room. I could negotiate. I could solve the problems. I could keep succeeding.

For the first time, that wasn't enough.

I knew I could do it.

I simply didn't want to anymore.

There wasn't some spectacular breaking point. I just saw what was coming so clearly that it made me sad. I knew the game. I knew how to play it. I was good at it. I no longer wanted to.

Surely there was something more interesting I could do with my life.

Something that made me feel like I was contributing to the world in a way I actually wanted to contribute.

So I left.

Something funny has happened since then. I'm still good at resolving conflict. I just don't automatically assume that makes the conflict mine. When disagreement breaks out around me now, I have learned to step back.

Sometimes I ask the people involved to find a solution they can both live with. When my grandchildren fight, I've developed an even better strategy. I offer one truly horrible solution that neither of them will like. Then I suggest they come up with something better.

And I leave.

It's beautiful.

Turns out people are remarkably capable of solving their own problems when the person who usually solves them stops volunteering.

Meanwhile, I've been learning something I'm not nearly as comfortable doing.

Writing.

I thought I was a pretty good writer until I entered the publishing world. That was humbling. Apparently repeated revisions are not an elaborate prank played on new authors. They're real. They're frustrating.

Sometimes I write something I love and discover it needs to be pulled apart and put back together. Sometimes I stare at one sentence far longer than any reasonable person should.

I love writing.

Not every minute.

But I love the challenge.

I love writing about ordinary moments and discovering something inside them I hadn't noticed before. I'm still learning. Still getting things wrong. Still figuring out what works.

There's something wonderfully different about being a beginner at something I chose instead of an expert at something everyone expected me to do.

Maybe that's what took me so long to understand. Being good at something and enjoying it are not the same thing. Neither is being good at something and choosing it.

I'm good at this.

I enjoy this.

I choose this.

Those are three different sentences.

For a very long time, I treated them as though they meant the same thing.

They don't.

Being capable of carrying something doesn't mean it belongs to you. Sometimes the thing you're exceptionally good at is simply something you learned how to do exceptionally well.

You are still allowed to put it down.

I spent years being the person people called when something needed fixing. I'm still capable of fixing things. These days, I'm simply a little more interested in asking whether they're mine to fix.

And sometimes, wonderfully, the answer is no.