“Who doesn’t bring a spoonful of fear to the first day of a new job?” – Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry
Years ago, I participated in a teambuilding event where one of the things we had to do was to fill a cup with water from a bucket—which was about 10 feet away—using a teaspoon.
I recall that there was no explanation for why we did this activity exactly (to infuriate us?!?) and that it was a competition to see which team finished filling their cup first. Trying to carry a teaspoon of water anywhere without spilling it is an exercise in frustration unto itself. I’m not sure how turning it into an internal competition was supposed to help our team cohesion either. It felt a bit counterproductive. (Unless the point was to unite everyone by our extreme irritation with all of the activity facilitators by the end of the day? I also recall some shaming by the facilitators about how we were supposed to collaborate and be creative.)
However, the quote above from The Light We Carry reminds me of this activity. Of how difficult it was to get from point A to point B while carrying this spoon of water and desperately trying—and failing—not to spill it. Don’t let them see you sweat! That’s advice I remember hearing, particularly as a woman and nearly always from other women. Even if you’re scared, you’re not supposed to let anyone see that. This is a message I’m sure many of us have heard (or at least it’s a common one in the US).
But we are sweating! And we’re carrying around it in a damn teaspoon, trying not to spill it while moving towards a destination. And we’re supposed to look good while doing it, too?
There are many metaphors for fear, and there is much advice about it. (Some advice seems much healthier than holding it all in. For example, using fear as a form of fuel, as the former First Lady suggests, or recognizing that fear can be an indicator that something or someone is important to us.)
Why not spill it?
The first time I went to a networking event in Tokyo, in 2022, I was super nervous. I hadn’t really gone to any such events since 2019, I’m always nervous around new people, and here I was trying to do it in a new country and in a place where I didn’t know anyone. After the host asked me a fairly innocuous question (probably what I do) and giving a rambling, probably nonsensical answer, I was sweating through my shirt.
Then I heard the person in front of me wonder out loud about what we were supposed to do, whether to get in line for the drinks, or how does one even introduce themselves to strangers anymore. It was as if I just heard all the thoughts in my head spoken out loud! Because I had. She turned to me and introduced herself, and that’s how I made my first friend (who wasn’t introduced to me by someone I already knew) in Tokyo.
Instead of trying to figure out ways to transfer the water if you can’t move the bucket or the cup, we ought to be questioning whose cup we are filling by carrying this water across this distance in these tiny spoons.
Are there still spaces in which letting them see you sweat is going to be something that others will use to undermine you? Unfortunately, yes. It’s their form of sweating in public – undermining others based on something that’s irrelevant because of how insecure those people are. But admittedly, it doesn’t change the fact that sometimes those people still have more power within certain spaces.
Still, I’m finding that there are more and more places where it’s better (and more rewarding) to spill it. Rather than trying to fill the cup that society tells us to fill, it’s better to water the ground around us. The point is not to carry the spoons, to carry the water, or to fill some arbitrary container. To continue to carry our true feelings and our humanness and our uniqueness in a tiny little spoon across the playing field is to continue to play by rules that were never meant for us, because the people who set the rules always intended for us to remain on the sidelines. And that’s the point of carrying the spoonful of water (or fear, or whatever) and trying not to spill it.
When we focus on not letting them see us sweat, we collude in their false narrative that vulnerability is weakness.
Screw the game. We’re each of us more powerful than we realize, sometimes even in those spaces that run on insecurity. When we focus on not letting them see us sweat, we collude in their false narrative that vulnerability is weakness. But if you think about the strongest people you know in life, I’m willing to bet that they’re actually the people who are secure enough to admit when they made a mistake, to choose courage in spite of how scared they are, and to be a whole human in a world that would find it easier if we could be tiny little machines that just stayed in our lanes.
But it’s not about what I think either. What do you think? What do you know to be true?
- Are you here to play a game? Or to grow and create something?
- What spoons are you carrying? What’s in them? Whose cup are you filling with them? And who benefits from that?
If you’re interested in a thought partner to help you unpack these questions, please reach out and we can find a time to talk.
Note: While I did not directly reference Spoon Theory in this post, it’s worth noting that, while the metaphor may also work for people without disabilities, that the concept of spoons and how many spoons you have available to get through your day comes from and is primarily used by the disability community. If you’re unfamiliar with Spoon Theory, I encourage you to give the linked article a read!