Appearance
“Appearances are often deceiving.”
- Aesop
I used to take trains in Chicago with 5 AM type times on them. That got me to the office in a 6 AM range. It often felt like I was the only commuter headed to an office in a sea of commodity traders headed to the exchange.
No one else was at the office when I arrived there. Most of them rolled in around the 9 AM timeframe and soon after went for a coffee break or breakfast.
I had a lot of work to do. Getting there early also allowed me to catch one of the express trains that left before 5 PM instead of catching one of the “milk run” trains later that took twice as long. It wasn’t long before my 9 AM boss called me into his office to tell me that he didn’t like the optics of me running to the train station before 5 PM.
I told him I didn’t care how it looked.
He said it mattered.
I told him I got there 3 or so hours before everyone in the office.
He said no one sees that.
I told him I didn’t care.
I was in sales. There was a scoreboard. I was crushing the other guy in Chicago who had the same job and was second in North America to all my peers with the same position. I’ll take performance over appearance any day.
I still feel that way. My newly determined “8” on the Enneagram test confirms that my feeling this way is pretty core to who I am. And I think it is why I love the movie and the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis. The idea that a numbers nerd would look past all the old standards of appearance in evaluating player potential resonates with something deep inside me.
It is also why, in a business sense, I am such a fan of measuring performance with metrics, KPIs, and all that stuff. Our perception is always jaundiced. It is weighted with our experience, an interpretive lens, and our well-honed bias. It is important to try to see things as they are and not how they appear.
And it has never been more essential or difficult to find.
Even our institutions of higher education and our most vaunted news sources seem to be jaundiced with opinion or agenda. Every story carrying a determined bias and each piece of information weaponized with a target in mind.
One of my spiritual mentors challenges that there is only one source that won’t deceive. One interpretative lens that won’t misrepresent. One voice that we can truly trust. He says that conversational intimacy with God is the only antidote to these times.
Stilling and quieting your heart and mind, to the absence of all else, to hear the clarity, direction, and affection of the Father’s voice has become an essential port in this storm. The vigilance it takes to find that quiet, that calm, is exhausting.
And it is worth every ounce of the effort required.
Consider
When is the last time you could hear yourself think?
What are you seeing as you wish it was instead of how it really is?
What in your life is confusing, overwhelming, or unclear?
What is it costing you to not get still and quiet enough to hear the voice of God?