There were times during my career as a rabbi when I believed a little too much in my own indispensability.
In short, I foolishly imagined that my community couldn’t manage without me. After all, I was the key player, the person - albeit with excellent support from professional and lay teams - around which everything revolved.
But this way of thinking is as destructive as it is common. No-one is indispensable. Believing otherwise is toxic for everyone.
The graveyards are full of people the world could not do without. [Elbert Hubbard]
Some are shaken from this delusion by the death of a relative, a health scare, a scandal involving a revered colleague, or a spiritual / inspirational moment. Others never stop believing in their own indispensability until one day they arrive at work to discover that it’s their last.
I was fortunate, as my ‘indispensability epiphany’ occurred not through personal challenge or redundancy. Late to the party, I began to realise that the notion of one person’s indispensability - especially mine - is preposterous and arrogant.
Had I really believed that a personal disaster (let’s say illness or an encounter with a double-decker bus) would lead to the implosion of my community? Granted, there would be a period of turmoil, grief, even despair, but they would eventually appoint a new leader at the right time and pull through. The community might never be quite the same, but I am certain that it would still be there a year or ten after my demise, thriving under new management.
I am reminded of a joke that I told numerous times from the pulpit.
The synagogue president calls their ailing rabbi to report that ‘the board of management wishes you a speedy recovery… five votes to four!’
Actually, I don’t think my ‘indispensability epiphany’ is quite complete, even after long reflection, a year’s lead-in to my departure and the few months that have passed since I left. I don’t think I’ve fully adjusted to the idea that the community will survive intact without me. I maintain rather too strong an interest in how things have been going.
But that feeling is subsiding and I suspect that my curiosity will start to wane when my successor arrives in a few weeks. But letting go can be hard, as I’ll discuss in another newsletter.
Busting the indispensability myth is essential to Leave Well | Live Better.
Do you believe in your own indispensability? What might shock you into reconsidering as you set out on the path to Leave Well | Live Better?
Please tell me in the comments.
Next up: Leave Well | Live Better: Wanting to be Needed
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Reading your post it occurred to me that of course the same applies in other areas of life, such as getting out of a relationship. I am wondering whether we use this myth of indispensability to cover up some real fear within us - perhaps the fear of uncertainty. If I leave, what next...? Who will I be then?
I remember a school assembly that I heard (as a member of staff) about geese. I can't vouch for its ornithological accuracy but the message about leadership was clear and memorable.
There's a pattern by which the leader of the characteristic V-formation in which geese fly falls back to a supporting role after a certain length of time. The uplift of the wingbeats of the other birds in the V supports the leader, creating the capacity for navigation or horizon scanning, but there comes a time when that role has to be handed on - presumably before tiredness sets in and fatal mistakes set in.
Who knows how the geese know when that time has arrived, or whether it's the lead goose or the follower geese who make the decision...but there's a wisdom hardwired into their instincts that has plenty to teach us.
Interestingly something similar happens in Franciscan monastic communities. The Father Abbot can only serve for 5 years and then must return to the 'rank and file' of the other brothers - to avoid damage to his soul. Food for thought!