Underappreciation
A theme in many recent conversations is working hard doing unvalued innovative work for organizations who are at best ambiguous about the possibility of their own growth and change. Evoking a metaphor: Sometimes some of us feel like a gourmet cook in the kitchen of a residential treatment center for anorexic adolescents.
June 14th, 2007 20:13
I loved the metaphor you cooked up: “a gourmet cook in the kitchen of a residential treatment center for anorexic adolescents.” Either this is food for thought or food for naught.
June 15th, 2007 17:31
I spent years being under appreciated for the arduous work I did — about a quarter century’s worth of undervalued work. One day, I stepped out from under it. It was difficult to decide to do that and painful to separate from something that I loved with all my heart, but there it was — the scale with the passion on one side and the pain on the other. It reminds me of a story On A Man and His Burden by Hillaire Belloc. I highly recommend this to all who feel burdened by under appreciation or any other such ailment.
What can one say that is positive here? Plant seeds. That was my father’s advice. If they fall on fallow ground, plant them elsewhere. It may be a very longtime and perhaps will not be in your lifetime, but the work you do can have a positive result in the right environment. Since we are not always aware of the fecundity of our surrounds, Dad’s good advice was plant and move on, be sure you have lots of seeds and learn as much as you can about the soil and weather conditions — read: anorexic adolescents cannot appreciate your gourmet cooking, therefore you may need to change kitchens.
June 15th, 2007 18:05
geez….talk about synchronicity or would it be serendipity? I ran across a reference for jack/zen when I was looking up something regarding the bpf cleveland this morning. read a few posts, loved what I read, and added it as a site to ‘nibble on.’ now I just came back a to read a bit more and checked out the ‘about jack’ section and in that I discovered you’re the jack I met at the kentucky garden wed. night. too weird, or maybe not. cosmic convergence of some sort? another strange coincidence is the thank you link…while I don’t like it it has been bookmarked on my computer for YEARS and is a frequently referenced site by myself. now will have to check out your flicker photos to find your bird in the traffic light shot! ditto david and zinger of a comment. namaste