Less Professors, More Advisors

I think I’ve always been one to look for permission. 

Often my first question when I’m making a decision is, “Are you sure this is okay?” Followed quickly by “Did we ask anyone about this?” Not to make myself sound unsure, because if anything, I’d say I’m a pretty decisive and certain person, but sometimes, especially when stepping out in a new direction- I don’t want to be stepping out alone. I want someone to tell me where the rocks are and where the waters might overpower me as I try to cross the river ahead. I don’t want to do it alone. Some of us do, but that is definitely not me. 

While I’m not fully into the enneagram, I’ve been classified and identified with the description of an enneagram one- a personality type that is often obsessed with right and wrong, good and bad, definite and certain dualities that help us navigate the world. Our sense of justice and injustice is so strong because five seconds before our sense of perfection and impurity kept us from just doing the damn thing. The fears of an enneagram one often center around being wrong, failing, being on the wrong side, or making a wrong choice. We want to be on the side of good, purity, and justice- like epic heroes in an ancient mythos where good and evil are clear and obvious. 

But, the only thing that’s really obvious in real life is that we have lives to lead and that there isn’t much that is clearly right or wrong. 

In my years teaching and serving students, people who were maybe a few years younger than me, one of the myths I’d try to clear up often is that there is no mystical angel with trumpets and a spotlight who’s gonna rain down on you whenever you’re facing a difficult choice- making everything feel dramatic and telling you that yes, this is the all-defining moment of the movie that is your life. Usually, the biggest steps we take can feel subtle and inconsequential at first, especially when you’re young and big choices rarely mean things like moving or marrying or things that adult people do. But even those big adult moves come out of the small, subtle choices and moves we make every day. The feelings we choose to process. The people we continue to talk to. The things we consume and watch and read. 

We naturally and unwittingly build little advisory councils around ourselves- voices we look to when we don’t know what to do next. When we want permission. When we want help. When it’s late and we don’t know what to reply to that sudden text, or what to do about the question circling through our head, or the idea we feel like chasing but don’t know how. 

I don’t share everything with everyone, but I’ve always valued having advisors and mentors. People I can go to who know more and have seen more than me, either in age or experience. And honestly, if you take anything from reading this, I’d hope it’s that finding someone like that and investing in them to be a part of your life is so, so valuable. Even if it means just thinking of them until you can meet them on the other side of quarantine. 

Being intentional about who and what that council is has been life-altering for me. Carefully choosing who I follow, who I want to meet with, and what words I want pouring into my life has been so life-giving, even when I have to go back and edit the council over and over again. 

And the first thing I wanted to do after the personal hurricane that was last summer and fall was find a new council. People I could come to with questions and just sit and listen to. Especially as I sat on the fiftieth zoom call full of well-meaning but equally clueless students trying to achieve huge goals that they shouldn’t have to be figuring out alone. In a call full of talented and amazing students, I kept wondering where the adults were. People who had done exactly what we were trying to do and knew how to help us- and while I couldn’t find them an advisory council, I could certainly find one of my own. Which meant joining groups I’d been following for years, whether I felt ready or not.

Last November, I hit so many “join”, “yes” and “interested” buttons that landed in me in some of the oddest but most amazing spots. And through the weaning and encouragement of time, I’m now honored to be a part of groups where I am by far the youngest member. Groups that catapulted me forward, even when that catapult meant I needed to get some deep stuff figured out and now. But, let me tell you, absolutely nothing is as freeing as hearing people ten or twenty years older than you processing the same stuff you’re going through. Wrestling with the same demons and monsters you thought you needed figured out by 20 or 25 or 30 or maybe even next week. News flash: you don’t.

And, as some of the amazing women in my guidance group have told me, you only have one chance to be 20, you have your whole life to process things. I remember another call where I was so worried and anxious about all the things I felt catapulted into and unsure of, all the changes happening in and around and over me, and this 40-something, kick-ass Black woman from Florida just said, “Have you screamed lately?” And, no. No I hadn’t. I was dead set that the answer to all my shakiness needed to be found in the quiet stillness of the soul or something poetic like that- which, yes to a degree- but her point was just go and be. Take up space. Exist. Fill the air with your existence. With your fear and rage and uncertainty. And then hear yourself respond after. Stop shrinking. Stop thinking no one can hear you or see you. Stop thinking that your uncertainties can’t take up space. That your inner world can’t or shouldn’t inspire action- and dramatic action. I still haven’t gone out and screamed yet, but the sudden and heartfelt words of a random woman I have never and probably will never meet again still ring in my ear, because I sought her counsel. 

And y’all. Burn the permission slips. The papers and forms you want people to sign so you can go do something. Burn ‘em. Have an abstract bonfire and let ‘em burn in the flames of bravery and seeking advice over certainty. But that doesn’t mean go alone. It means asks more questions, find more advisors, fill your life with voices from all over that will listen and learn and see you- even if it’s just through the words on a screen and they’ll perhaps never know your real-life name or face. And listen. Learn. Watch. Open up when the space feels warm and safe and available to you. 

Life isn’t an assignment, it’s an adventure. And yes, even the most black and white among us can be the leading characters in our own adventure novels, or drama movies, or whatever genre of life strikes your fancy. There’s no rubric, only love. Even Jesus boiled down the law to relationships- one with God and one with your neighbors. Not rules, but relationships. Two-way streets of encouragement, grace, and humanity that should fill our lives with community and wisdom, even if imperfect. 

If you’ve been finding yourself asking “can I?” change the question to “how do I?” and find someone who’s done it before. If you don’t know of anyone, find them. Do a search, look up key terms, find people who are speaking in the spaces that call to you. Pick up a book or a blog or a podcast and listen. 

We’ve already been given permission to exist. All we need now is the advice to help us thrive. Go and find that instead.

I also want to note that there are several professors I dearly love (Dr. Revell is an angel among men), so the title is not a diss to any professors xD Many of their voices are still in my inner advisory council.