Why Am I Doing This?

Take a heap of sand and remove one grain. Is it still a heap? Do it again, and again... No single grain turns it into something else. So when does it stop being a heap? Philosophers call this the sorites paradox. I ran into it at the grocery store.

My story

I had retired after 35 years in a corporate career, and I took a part-time job at a local grocery store for two reasons. A) I thought I might need something to keep me busy, and B) I was not fully convinced we would be financially OK.

Neither reason lasted. My days filled up with volunteering, writing and my small business. The money question was answered with a resounding yes. But I stayed anyway. I enjoyed the work and I liked the team. Nothing was wrong, so I never thought to ask whether I should still be there.

And then….

Then two things happened a short time apart. I had to turn down a really cool opportunity in the community because of the job. It annoyed me to miss out. And about a week or so later - I was looking at the work schedule and noticed that I had been booked for a 5 AM shift. “5 AM!?” I said to myself, imagining setting the alarm for 4 AM. “Why am I doing this to myself?!”

Importantly - I didn’t just ask that rhetorically. I paused, spent some time reflecting, and actually answered that question. The answer was bigger than either of the triggering events. The gist? The reasons I once had for the job no longer applied. Take away the early shift (the trigger) and the answer stayed the same.

So I gave notice.

Not straws

It would be easy to call that shift the last straw, but that’s not it. A last straw breaks you. You leave because you cannot carry any more, and you leave resentful. I left a job I liked.

That brings me back to the heap of sand. Reasons to stay at the store were grains of sand, slipping away one at a time. Reasons to leave were straws, landing one at a time on the camel's back. The decision is the balance between them. My straws were light. They mattered only because the heap on the other side had quietly stopped being a heap.

That is the trouble with reasons that fade a grain at a time. No particular day is the one where the balance tips, so no day tells you to look. It took a missed opportunity and an alarm set for the wee hours of the morning to make me look.

I doubt the grocery store was my only heap. Most of us carry a few: a commitment, a routine, a role taken on for reasons that made sense at the time. The thing stays pleasant enough, so it continues, waiting for a trigger that may be years off or may never come.

Triggers arrive by accident. I think that it would be better not to rely on them. The question is portable, and it can be asked on an ordinary day about something that is going fine. “Why am I doing this?”

Either answer is insight

Sometimes you may realize that it’s not what it used to be, and it’s time for a change. Sometimes there will be a good answer to keep doing it - and that is worth knowing too.