The Liminality of a No-Win Situation
Overview
Life feels like a high-stakes ping-pong game right now. Over the past few weeks, I've shared that work stress nearly sent me to the hospital and also that I was in a deliciously liminal space (can you say oxymoron?!). Well, that deliciousness was short-lived.
I felt a panic attack arising in my chest during a work meeting on Wednesday, only an hour after I'd gotten off an emergency call with my therapist. The trigger: a combination of my employer's new mandate to fully embrace AI in ways that I can't avoid, and my lack of preparedness to demonstrate to the Director of Finance how I've been working with Claude this past month (spoiler: I haven't).
Okay, this is the THIRD time I have pulled the Knight of Cups (reversed) over the past week or so! This time I pulled it as I felt the panic welling up...and the takeaway is that it would behoove me to ask for the support I need. #noted
The physical incapacitation saved my ass in that moment — panic attacks sometimes do that — but I'll probably have to have a very uncomfortable conversation with my manager in the near future about what happened and whether it's time for me to either "get on board or pack my bags."
The last time something like this happened
I'm reminded of when I worked in corporate wellness 10+ years ago. I ran an ROI for a terming client, and the ROI was negative. My boss called me into his office, told me that we weren't "allowed" to have negative ROIs, and instructed me to "go fix it." I kid you not. In other words, he wanted me to use my deep understanding of statistics to manipulate the model until we got a result that showed our services (falsely) benefitted the client. It's called lying with statistics, and it's easy to do.
I wanted to scream — to quit on the spot — but I didn't. My small family relied on my income, and I was terrified of the consequences. So I plugged new (and completely irrelevant and/or confounding variables) into the model until I got a result that made the VP happy, which meant that I got to keep my job for a little while longer. And when I did this, I sold a bit of my integrity.
Selling my integrity
What am I going to do now? Am I going to sell my integrity again? The short answer is that on Thursday, I downloaded Claude to my work laptop. And then I fucking prompted it to provide me a condensed bulleted list of — get this — another bulleted list I'd created so that I could fulfill the minimum requirement for using it on that given day. I experienced moral injury just from entering this single prompt. It was awful.
The moral injury I experienced was less about using agentic AI than it was about feeling forced to do something that went against my own ethical code — that was completely out of integrity for me. My employer used to feel safe (I mean, we'd even have processing circles whenever something big was going on...who does that?!), but it no longer does.
I absolutely hate that I have to choose between my integrity and a paycheck. I do not have the supports to be unemployed without access to unemployment, which I wouldn't qualify for if I quit. And I do not currently generate adequate or reliable income from Deeper Integrity. There are no easy answers on the horizon.
Doing what I can
But, I'm brushing off my resume and doing what I can, given that I have bills to pay, debts to pay off, and food to buy in our capitalist world that does not value gifts void of dollar signs.
I'll figure it out — I've dealt with circumstances far more stressful than this in the past — but it's quite liminal and very uncomfortable at the moment.
Creating a challenge for my future self
My therapist suggested that I create a challenge for myself to change my behaviors and pay off my debts over the next two years so that I can do work that feeds my spirit and doesn't compromise my integrity. It's funny because I'd been thinking something similar!
Like, I'd love to work at the food co-op in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood. My favorite jobs of all time were at the Real Food Market in Helena, MT and the Seward Co-op in Minneapolis. Stocking local organic rainbow chard is a dream, and it would feel so amazing to be able to do the kind of work I love even if the pay isn't so great.
Anyway, I'm going to spend the next week or so figuring out the logistics and details of my challenge. I'm also getting a vocational tarot reading done by Megan Leatherman as part of her Meant for More program on July 1st that may provide me with some additional insights.
My intentions
My intention is to bring you with me on this journey, as I know that many of my readers are struggling with burnout, late-stage capitalism, and the craziness of the world, and as I suspect that this challenge I'll be embracing may be medicine for you as well.
Hell, that makes me wonder if this might be a challenge that I'll offer my community. I'm going to let it marinate some...
Circling back to you...
Are you struggling with circumstances that offer you no good options or that force you to either compromise your own values or invite (at least short-term) disaster into your life? How do you stay grounded in the midst of it all? If you're not staying grounded, what's something you might do to help?
If you're not struggling, yay! But should something deeply troubling like this arise, what would you do to stay or get grounded, think clearly, and respond in an aligned way?
Just food for thought. A little preparation now could help later on.
That is all.
Hi! I’m Kristi.
I help women & genderqueer folk liberate themselves from capitalism’s self-blaming hamster wheel of “mindset work”, bootstrapping, and “never enoughness” while navigating life’s day-to-day challenges. This work is, ultimately, about helping humans move into deeper integrity with who they truly are so that they can flourish and contribute meaningfully to our collective liberation. Click here to learn more.
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