I love the beginning of the year.
As the holiday season draws to a close there is a moment of pause and recovery, a time many take to prepare and plan for the next year. In my neck of the woods this is often accompanied by an ice-pocalypse, or an annual snow that shuts down everything and makes it nearly impossible to leave my house for a few days. From where I sit typing I see over half a foot of snow on every surface, insulating me from the busyness and high demand world outside.
At work, the beginning of the year means an annual retreat, or a few days set aside for concentrated reflecting on the last year and dreaming about the one to come. Part of this time always includes some sort of individual personality or working style assessment that will help us to work better together. This year we did the Working Genius test.
The Working Genius ranks you on 6 working styles — 2 that you enjoy and come most naturally to you, 2 that you have a working competency for, and 2 that are more difficult or frustrating for you. I learned a lot from my results, but one part of the report really stood out to me.
I have a working capacity for wonder.
I have been thinking a lot about wonder over the past year. If you’ve come to me for reading recommendations, or just been in casual conversation with me lately, it’s likely I’ve brought up Dacher Keltner’s book Awe and how awe-inspired I was of it. And then I probably brought up how studies show that apes experience awe when they look at a waterfall or perceive some exceptional natural phenomenon.
I also find myself often thinking of the Rumi quote: “Awe is the salve that will heal our eyes.” When we learn how to be in awe, we learn how better see the world.
But that’s the thing — we have to learn it.
Awe is not something that comes naturally to me. According to my assessment, the skill that comes most naturally to me is discernment. And I don’t have any argument with that. Questioning things and evaluating their usefulness is my go-to, instinctually criticizing before imagining.
Discernment is definitely a gift that I can use for good, but I am well acquainted with its shadow sides. I know that in our broken world my criticism protects me from disappointment, change, or difficult work. When there are no dreams there are no hopes to be dashed against the rocks.
There’s also the issue of confirmation bias. When I believe something, the things that confirm my belief are going to stand out to me, while the things that contradict what I believe are barely going to show up on the radar. When I flex my criticism muscle it will become stronger and that will shape the way I view the world.
But that’s a rather unfortunate, and inaccurate, way of viewing the world.
There is no shortage of opportunity for awe in my life. I have been privileged to see some of the most beautiful places in the world. Recently I got to go to Guatemala and stay in a hotel overlooking Lake Atitlán. Every morning I woke up and thought, “Wow — I have never seen anything so beautiful.”
And I get to do work that is particularly conducive to awe. I work with remarkable people who do remarkable work in some of the most difficult contexts imaginable. I get the reports of successes and stories about how women in South Sudan are transforming their economies through savings groups and small businesses. This year about 200 women generated more than $90,000 in their rural towns populated by people who traditionally believe that women have no place in the economy.
I received another report from a man in Tanzania recently who had started a business after losing his leg from complications of diabetes. He said that through the business training he received he learned that “disability is not inability” and he has the capacity to do so much good in the world.
And I was so in awe of this story, this man, this work. There is so much little good happening in the world.
We often limit awe to things like these, to certain people with certain privileges and certain opportunities. Awe is associated with the grandiose.
But with a little training we can find awe in the smaller things, in the miniscule.
I am in awe of the snowflakes that are so small and so intricate and so able to shut down my entire city. I am in awe of the way my food waste becomes compost that will nourish a garden. I am in awe of the way my friends and family speak encouragement and wisdom into my life.
You can experience awe in a song, a sporting event, a houseplant, or an act of kindness. Awe waits quietly for us everywhere, longing to be embraced and transform our lives.
And I’m pretty convinced that practicing wonder can change the world.
A broken world has little hope. It is no great motivator to make us ask, “What could be?” A broken world condemns us to the fear of disappointment and tells us that nothing can be done. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because when we believe nothing can be done, we will do nothing, and nothing will be done. Because what’s the point?
We have been wounded by despair, and this chronic pain shapes our world. It affects the way we spend our time, the things we invest in, the way we vote, the kind of institutions we’re a part of, the way we approach conflict at work — so many things.
But as I just read in the foreword to Andrea J. Ritchie’s Practicing New Worlds, “May our wonder outmatch our wounds.”
A wonder-full world is overflowing with opportunity. It motivates to ask, “What’s the best possible world? And how do we get there?” And it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because when we believe something can be done, we will do something. The overused quote is true — you can be the change you wish to see in the world.
We can practice a new world. We can live as if people can choose peace, live as if poverty can be ended, live as if everyone had access to the things they need, live as if our cities could be full of trees, live as if rest and solidarity were essential to our economic systems. And slowly but surely, this new world will come into being. Slowly but surely our despair wounds will be healed.
I don’t mean to make it sound as if it’s a simple thing, or even that we will see the end result of our work. World-building happens very slowly, requiring us to be mentored by tortoises and sometimes take on a long view of time. We have a lot of brokenness to overcome, and maybe we’re planting seeds that will be harvested by the generations to come.
But it doesn’t have to be all that hard either. We don’t have to wait to be enveloped by awe.
So go outside, see a great film, laugh with your friends, and think about how far you’ve come. Our existence is miraculous. Find the awe that drives you to be part of the better world that we’re building.
If you’re interested in being a part of something wonder-inducing, click here to learn more about what I do at Flint Global. For more information or to set up a meeting you can email me at jessicamarkwood@flintglobal.org .