My 74th birthday found me reflecting on the gift I’ve developed that makes me the relatively happy person I am; my ability to adapt to change. Here’s what I mean:
- For the first half of my life, I lived as the 9th of 10 children. Since mid-life, I’ve chosen to be one among 10 kids.
- My early career was politics and advertising. Since then, it’s been all business.
- I was raised a doctrinaire Catholic. I’ve since become an ecumenical Catholic Christian.
- From 12 to 64, I was a moderate Republican. Today I identify as a moderate Democrat.
Those changes might sound severe, so let me pick them apart one at a time and see whether there’s an underlying point to this meandering.
Combine my DNA with my birth order, and you get a boy who developed—and plied—an intense need to please. Playing the role of little brother served the sales side of my career well, but became detrimental to my self-image and to many relationships, including my relationship with each of my siblings. Hanging onto a role for the sake of pleasing others stunts your growth. To this day, I must keep lovingly breaking out of baby-of-the-family mode—and not just with my sibs!
Career-wise, once I gave up the dream of becoming a musician, I swam the waters of politics and advertising like a dolphin in a sea full of fish. In each of those trades, I worked for honest, hardworking people and so I still proudly claim my political and marketing heritage. Change only became an imperative when the corporate body rejected this “new organ.”
That rejection led to my hardest adaptation of all: becoming a businessman. What necessarily started as a one-person consultancy morphed into a fulfillment center, then into a database media company. Each change was exceedingly painful, and each was necessary to fit both market conditions and my own ambitions.
I was raised on the Baltimore Catechism, and I still greedily hang onto the Catholic code of faith, hope and charity. But the adaptive Tim has gradually learned that no matter what I believe, every other person has the right—and the need—to practice their own spirituality. I’ve long since set aside my father’s prayers for the “conversion of Russia” in favor of everyone’s right to choose. My own choice is the inclusive, loving, laughing Jesus I’ve come to know.
When I was 12, a neighbor had me volunteering for the Goldwater for President campaign, and a Republican Tim was born—one who went on to work professionally for his party from age 19 to 26. I kept that identification for almost forty more years, until I felt compelled to choose a new brand. My adaptation of the last ten years is no greater or lesser than my other changes. It comes down to valuing my beliefs over hanging onto an identification.
Looking back, the pattern holds in all four: I kept what I believed and let go of a role or label that no longer fits me. Changing a label long accepted is painful, but it would be more painful to change my heart to fit my label.
What identities do we hang onto beyond their usefulness?
For better or worse, I am a people-pleasing, politically moderate, inclusive Christian business guy. That’s my label. And as Michael J. Fox says, “what others think of me is none of my business”.
Amen.
Peace,
Tim McCarthy
