Have you ever suffered a defeat or major setback? Have you ever considered yourself to be a “loser,” or worse yet, been called that? Have you believed yourself to possess certain skill sets, but then doubted your abilities when things began to get really difficult? “Who am I to think that I could actually do this?” you ask. That’s what might be called “impostor syndrome.” Worst of all, have you carried around inside you feelings of guilt, remorse, or regret that you just can’t seem to let go even if years go by? Well, all of these mindsets need to stop. Today. There is only one lens through which our adverse experiences must be viewed: we either win, or we learn. Full stop. We don’t lose. That is, unless we quit.
This is very much a spiritual issue. If we allow our minds to succumb to misguided and flawed perceptions of our worth and ability, or let our setbacks leave mental scars that never heal, we may never achieve a state of sustainable joy or fulfillment, no matter our spiritual path. We must be able to label our experiences accurately and learn how to integrate their lessons into our philosophies as we move forward. To illustrate, I would like to tell a story from my own experience whose lessons helped to set me on my own professional and spiritual pathways. The events of this story led me to where I am in my career and spiritual life. I would be a much different, and perhaps lesser, person had my fate not unfolded as it did. As I relate these events, consider the key experiences from your own unfolding path; did you interpret them through the proper “win or learn” lens?
I am a high school English teacher. I have done this work for 33 years, 31 of those spent in the same building. However, the long ago interview for the position I now hold was not the first one I ever had. That one was two years earlier, in 1992. I was fresh out of college, a naive graduate who had completed his student teaching internship with flying colors. What I failed to understand at the time was that that internship experience, as valuable and enjoyable as it was, was in no way truly representative of what it would be like to operate a classroom of my own. There were too many facets of the profession I was about to enter that simply could not be experienced through the limited duties that by nature accompanied the status of “student teacher.” I headed off to the first job interview of my life optimistic and perhaps a bit too confident in abilities that, I would soon learn, I barely yet possessed.
I had to drive halfway across my state, through some of the most beautiful country I had ever seen, to reach the picturesque little town whose high school had expressed interest in speaking with me. I arrived the day before the interview and checked into a quaint little hotel not far from the school where the interview would take place at 8:00 am the next morning. I hung the brand new suit I had purchased in the closet, along with the power tie that my brother, a successful banker, had helped me pick out. Twelve hours later, I would be working to demonstrate to established professionals in my chosen field that I deserved to be counted as one of them.
I didn’t sleep well, if at all. I didn’t trust the hotel alarm clock to actually go off. The thing looked totally fine, and I knew how to set it, but I just couldn’t risk something going wrong. I was too close to the greatest opportunity to have yet presented itself in my life. So, I stared up at the ceiling of the hotel room for most of the night and listened to the “impostor fairy” nestled next to my ear as it started to assert its position: You think you can do this? You think that little internship of yours was enough to prove that you can make it in this profession? You’re going to fall asleep in the middle of the interview after this interminable night.
“I’ll have some coffee,” I responded aloud. “It will be fine.”
It was 6:00 am when I threw back the sheets, no longer able to lay there listening to the nagging voice of my own doubts. I got myself ready, threw on the suit and power tie, and drove to the school where my foreseeable destiny would be decided. I got there almost an hour early, at first unable to even find the entrance. A side door suddenly opened, and a young man as big as I was, wearing a letter jacket, stuck his head out and said, “Um…do you need in here?” This was back in the 90’s, where the thought of letting in a stranger walking around your school, especially one in a suit, would not have caused much of a stir. It didn’t. He engaged me in some small talk as he led me to the office, wished me luck, and dropped me off into the hands of the building secretary.
“Oh, yes. The interviews today,” she said distractedly. “You’re pretty early. Go ahead and have a seat for the time being.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you,” I said, settling into one of the eight or so chairs just inside the office door. Gradually, more an more people began to arrive; some were clearly staff members arriving for work, some students heading off to class, and some…some were dressed a lot like me, being asked to take a seat just like I had been. The impostor fairy chose that moment to return to my shoulder. Those are the ones that want your job. One of them will get it.
We’ll see, I thought.
“Mr…Worthy is it?” The secretary who had seated me earlier came forward with a sheet of paper in her hand. “Would you please come with me?”
“Yes…yes, no problem,” I stammered. I bolted up and followed her out of the office into a rising tide of 1990’s teenager-hood, laughing and jostling their way through the hallways and common spaces as they made their way to their first morning classes. She led me through a crowded classroom into a small study chamber adjacent to it, and gestured for me to have a seat on the wooden classroom chair next to the relatively small student desk.
She handed me the sheet of paper she had been carrying and said, “I’ll be back in 45 minutes.” Then she closed the door. I looked down at the desktop, where there was a pad of notebook paper, two pencils, and a dictionary. Then I glanced at the single sentence on the paper she had handed me: Explain the most influential movements in American education over the past 20 years.
The impostor fairy went into overdrive as my heart rate increased. Yeah. Sure. Explain that in 45 minutes with one of those there pencils, my guy. Have at ‘er.
I had no answer this time. I just had to sit down and start writing. Writing anything. As I look back on the moment, I really don’t think they cared what I wrote down; they were just trying to measure if I could write at all. Could I create a reasonably coherent composition when faced with a challenging task–as my future students would have to do? Well, at the time, I didn’t have the capacity to see that possibility. I was too stressed about not really knowing enough to address what seemed to be a ridiculously broad and even slightly unfair question. Well, there was nothing for it. I sat down and started a brain dump of whatever came to mind, even if it was only tangentially related to the task assigned. This experience is not starting well, I thought.
No. No it isn’t, the fairy said. Still think you deserve this? No answer from me.
Exactly 45 minutes later, the secretary opened the study room door. “Are you done?” she asked.
“Um…just about. Could I have a couple more minutes?”
“Sure,” she said, closing the door behind her. I scrawled out a hastily-crafted conclusion before she returned exactly two minutes later. “Are you done, now?” Her tone was quite clear that the given time had expired, so I handed her my pencil-scrawled treatise that would no doubt find its way into some office recycling bin in a few hours and rose to follow her back to the office.
She led me into a small conference room, nodded once, and closed the door behind her. I turned and noticed that I was not alone in the room. Three people were seated at the conference table, who I soon learned were the high school principal and two of their English faculty. We exchanged handshakes and initial pleasantries, and I took an offered chair in preparation for the next round of intellectual interrogation. In short order, the questions started to fly.
Over the course of the next hour, I was bombarded with questions regarding curriculum design, classroom management and student discipline, and other foundational educational concepts. I tried to hold my own, but as the sweat trickled down back, the impostor fairy was throwing a party: And you thought you could take your place among people like this? Go back home, and rethink your future. Maybe you can…pretend to be a writer or something.
I only remember one question verbatim from that interview: “Could you name three adjectives (ADJECTIVES! YES! Finally, a question I can probably get fully right!) that your students would use to describe you?” Now, high school students are pretty notorious for keeping their true feelings about you pretty close to their chests (unless of course they are motivated to really let you know, and then…well…you’ll know. In no uncertain terms, you’ll know). On occasion, you might get a card or an email ten years after they graduate with a heartfelt statement like “You have no idea how much of an impact you had on me.” Often, they are very much correct, as they never said anything at the time to indicate I was having any impact at all. So, my direct experience working with high school students only having ended about a week prior to the interview, I had to pretty much speculate on what adjectives they might apply toward me. My stressed and scattered brain rattled off the first three hopefully positive sounding adjectives that came to mind. Then the follow up question came. “Now, pick one of those and tell us why you chose it.”
I sat there for a moment, and then told the truth, for there was nothing else to do. “Um…would you be able to repeat back to me the adjectives that I just shared with you? I seem to have…forgotten what they were.” My mind had completely blanked on what I had just said only minutes earlier. The fatigue, stress, and voice of the impostor fairy (who was just laughing now) had at last combined their full forces and won the day. In the years to come, when I was sitting on the other side of the desk as an interviewer myself, I would be able to recognize that same feeling of stress and anxiety on the faces of others. To me, the demonstration of a degree of stress in a job candidate works in their favor; if they are stressed, they actually care. However, on that day in 1992, I sure didn’t feel that I had anything working in my favor at all. I had squandered an opportunity, and there was no telling when there would be another one.
The interviewers thanked me for coming, and let me know that they would be coming to a decision in a few days and they would then give me a call to let me know. Don’t see why they have to wait that long to tell you, the fairy whispered. It’s pretty clear you won’t be the one. I had no words. Suddenly, the principal pulled out a thick file folder filled with papers of some sort, and held it out to me. “On your way out of town, would you mind stopping by the district office downtown and dropping this off for us. We would really appreciate it.” In retrospect, this was a bizarre request. Why would school officials trust what was almost certainly a rejected job candidate with documents of any degree of formality or importance? How could they know I would actually deliver it? At the time, however, all I really heard was we would really appreciate it. Anything I could do to try and win myself back into their good graces in any way was a life-preserver I wouldn’t fail to grab.
“Absolutely! No problem. And thank you for this opportunity.” They smiled, shook my hand, and the interview came to a merciful end. I dejectedly trudged across the school parking lot toward my car, mentally exhausted after being there for nearly three hours, putting my inexperience and lack of preparedness on full public display. I took one last wistful look back at the school and its beautiful surroundings, started the car, and headed down to the district office building to finish the final task I had been given so I could just head back home with my proverbial tail between my legs and maybe re-examine my options moving forward. Disillusionment settled in, a numbness so all encompassing I wasn’t sure that it was safe for me to even drive. I shook my head and called on whatever sense of pride I still had so I could just do what immediately needed to be done. One step at a time.
I pulled into the district office parking lot a few minutes later and walked in with the unusually heavy file. To this day I have no idea what was inside of it. Probably scratch paper given what happened next. “Excuse me? I just came from the high school. They asked me to deliver this file to you.” I held it out to the secretary at the front desk, who smiled and took it from me.
“Thank you. You can have a seat. He’ll be right with you,” she said.
Wait, what? He? He who? Before I could even sit down as requested, a tall man in a suit not altogether unlike my own came out of a large office and held out his hand. “Mr. Worthy? Hi, I am the Superintendent of schools here. Come on in.” Stunned, I followed him into his office and saw, out of the corner of my eye, the secretary place the file folder I had brought her in a recycling bin. So that was just a gimmick to get me to come here? You could have just asked me to come down here, I thought. Perhaps that was some sort of loyalty or responsibility test. I’ll never really know.
Over the course of the next hour, I was interviewed again by the Superintendent, his questions being slightly altered versions of the ones I had endeavored to answer in the first interview. Instead of adjectives future students might use to describe me, it was adjectives my colleagues would use to describe me. Some of the questions were the same ones from earlier, and I slowly started to form my own theory on what was happening. So while I was coming down here, the Superintendent was on the phone with the principal, and they were conferring about me. Now, they were checking for consistency in my answers. Well, given how exhausted and demoralized I already was, both performances were consistently erratic and incoherent, the second one probably even more so. I almost felt like apologizing for wasting their time on me for several hours. When I finally drove out of town, I was genuinely thinking about how I would afford to return to school and pursue yet another degree in something for which I might be more suited.
A week later, I got the phone call. The moment I heard the principal’s voice on the other end of the line, my heart sank. I didn’t need to hear what I already knew was coming actually verbalized. She thanked me for having made the trip, and then got right to the point: they had hired a woman from a district closer to them for the position, and I had come in second place. Second place is the first loser, giggled the impostor fairy.
It was at that moment something snapped inside me, or rather, caught on fire, like a votive candle being lit, growing stronger and pushing back the darkness all around it. I had a simple choice. I could just say “thank you” once more and hang up, slipping back into the cold, depressive state I had been in the whole drive home. That was one option. It just wasn’t the one I chose. Flashing before my mind’s eye came the many faces and voices of students that I had met and had the opportunity to help during my six month internship. I had made a difference for them. Not all of them, for sure, but some had taken at least something with them that I had worked to offer. I had struggled for years with challenging coursework, pouring everything I had into maximizing my opportunities and learning as much as I could to pursue a dream I had entertained since I was a junior in high school. Sure, my interview hadn’t been the best, but how many can say that the first time they do something, whatever it may be, it represents the best of their efforts at that thing? That’s just not how the world works.
My fingers tightened around the phone, and I did thank the principal for the opportunity to visit her school and community and try to show them what I could do–but that wasn’t all. I asked her about the interview itself, the nature of the questions they had posed to me, and how I could improve moving forward. We spoke for half an hour, and she seemed genuinely happy to field my questions. In the end, she shared with me that on paper, and even to a degree in the interview process, the successful candidate and I were not all that different. She just had two years of experience, where I had none. In the back of my mind, I wondered how I was supposed to get experience if I couldn’t get the job that would result in that experience. Would I not always be at a distinct disadvantage if that was the deciding metric? What were the odds of every applicant for a position being rookies right out of college?
The principal’s last words to me were that the time and place would come where I would be the perfect fit at the perfect time. I just had to keep trying, working to grow and improve with each effort. The profession needed young and enthusiastic people, and probably sooner rather than later, I would be given the opportunity I was seeking. I thanked her once more and hung up the phone. I also smiled, and pulled out the most recent statewide job posting list. There were at least three more positions, scattered all across the state, for which I met the qualifications, and that was just for that week. It was only early May. There would be other opportunities, and whatever mistakes I had made in my first interview would not be repeated. No. I wouldn’t be going back to college as a student, only to a high school that wanted me as a teacher.
Four interviews later, I was given that first chance. My first two years were challenging beyond imagination, putting me through every fire I could imagine facing, and exposing every remaining weakness I had. “Well,” my father said to me after I had had a particularly difficult day, “if you want to make a good sword, you have to put it through the fire.” When you are sitting in the heat of that fire, such words are small consolation. Today, I look back on those first two years as the literal forge that shaped the foundation of everything I would later become. I have never surrendered the lessons from those years, or from that first interview. They were difficult times to be sure, but those experiences offered invaluable insights to me. They were not losses or defeats. I did not quit. I learned.
So how does the interview experience described here apply to more than a professional setting? How can we apply the maxim of win or learn to a more spiritual context? On many levels, our professional and spiritual lives are deeply intertwined. I hope that, on some level, the profession you belong to at the moment feeds your own soul and reflects the values you hold. If it doesn’t, I hope that you can find a way to alter your perspective, or, if it comes to it, change jobs to one that better nurtures your spirit. There is more to you than the work you do, but the work you do gives you a sense of purpose, something we all need in our lives to combat feelings of isolation and emptiness. Find the purpose and work that best mirrors and complements your gifts and talents and strengthens your spirit. Happiness and fulfillment will follow.
In my profession, no matter how challenging a situation might get, I know that at its core, the mission that drew me to the education profession doesn’t change. Individual leaders and staff members can change, which can change building climates. You can change schools for a fresh perspective and new start. There will still be challenges, but those too will offer you the chance to learn. I knew during those first two challenging years as a full-time teacher how good things had the potential to be based on my student teaching experience. I was able to fall back on those memories to strengthen my spirit after that first not so good interview, and those same memories helped me to transition to the job I now hold and have held for 31 years. I have had my share of challenges where I am, but where would I be without them? Still naive.
Your job or profession is not the only thing capable of change. Spiritual paths also evolve with learning and experience. I have experimented with, researched, and explored many paths over the decades and continue to learn and grow as I search for just the right combination of beliefs and practices that will bring me the most fulfillment. I keep my mind and options open as the journey continues.
The bottom line here is that your approach to life, both professionally and spiritually, must be grounded in a sense of curiosity and wonder. You will (hopefully) never reach a professional or spiritual “finish line” where growth and the quest to improve stagnates. Continue your search for truth, meaning, fulfillment, and happiness as you walk the path of your destiny. Never grow complacent or satisfied with the status quo. There is always more to learn, to be, to do, and to experience. Now go out and win, or learn until you do. Just don’t quit, for that is the only way you can lose.
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