February 3rd 2023
Divisions
I have told the horses quite often about the delineation between what is my work and what is theirs. I make it quite clear. Consider a team of horses spreading manure over a raised bed, for example. There are little aisles on each side and they ought to walk in this path while pulling evenly together. They also shouldn’t worry about what is my responsibility, which is operating the machine, making sure we don’t run out of manure, keeping track of which bed we’re working on or which one is next, whether we have enough manure for the bed feet we have, weather the soil conditions are appropriate, to tell the team when to start and stop, or which way to turn at the end of the field… All I need them to do for this to work is for them to focus forward. Everything in front of them is their job. Everything behind them is mine. They’re to pay no mind to the noisy machine and manure flinging behind them. Now sometimes, in an effort to save themselves great pain, or from fear, they get quite concerned with some of the things that are my responsibility. In these moments, for whatever reason the horses blur the lines between my responsibilities and theirs and our work gets infinitely more challenging.
There are a lot of similarities between this field scenario and our own personal relationships, whether they’re at work, school, or at home. Some days I get it right. And other days, for whatever reason, I no longer trust the people around me. I start to worry, I start to overstep. I find myself trying desperately to mend things that I have no power to fix. And I make things endlessly more difficult. Now, let me be clear that I don’t take it personally when a horse’s fear outweighs my ask. And likewise, my inability to trust has nothing to do with the good, patient, and capable people around me. We all have our own work to do. We all have a very tiny sphere that we can actually control. I have been reminded of that over and over. (I’m beginning to think it might be one of those lessons you spend your whole life coming back to and relearning.) But when we get it right it’s something quite lovely. It’s the clarity and the peace of these moments that moves me to muster up the courage to try again and to trust a little more.