# 431: Loving the Crazy Ones
Last week was all about crazy people. On Tuesday, I had a crazy encounter with a colleague of mine which left me with the impression that universities are places where people can live out their mental disabilities without any borders or medication but with a high salary. On Wednesday, I taught my class about Oliver Sacks and his stories about people with all kinds of neurological disorders. The students got at least a bit affected by Sacks’ love for the crazy ones — which I share. On Friday, we talked about mental illness resulting from burnout in a training. And on Sunday then, something happened at the airport which involved a really crazy person.
Yesterday, I felt shitty.
Today, I am writing again.
That is only because I learned an important lesson about myself.
And I treasure that lesson now.
Somebody helped me learn it in a phone call yesterday.
The thing that scared me most about myself following the incident on Sunday was that I trusted a crazy person too much. That is the bottom line. I knew the guy was crazy. We even had it on paper at a certain point. Still, I was all fine with it! I did not feel scared. On the contrary, at the beginning, it was fascinating to see the world through his eyes as he was expressing himself. It really felt a little bit like Oliver Sacks trying to make sense of the world of the insane from inside out. That is only possible if you do not judge all the time. Maybe I am already blinded by my work in university. There is so much insanity there. That is because, obviously, genius and madness, are two sides of the same coin. So, what I am saying is that I am convinced that you can only be fascinated by something which you are not afraid of. And you cannot interact with people and get serious information from them if you treat them like sick people all the time. That takes away their dignity, I think. And it makes you blind to the fact that we are all crazy in our own way.
Where is the border between “healthy” and “ill” when it comes to mental disorder?
And how the hell could I be such a risk taker when it came to taking care of the case?
Why do I always want to get stuff done quickly (at least in most professional matters)?
After we finished the case more or less in a good way, I started blaming myself for the things I had messed up. And the most important thing was not operational. It was that I had taken too much risk. At every step, I had only paid attention to the best outcome possible. And I had trusted in the fact that the crazy person would not freak out. And I wanted to take at least two steps at a time — as usually. Overall, that is nothing surprising. All of this just means: I was totally being myself! This is how I tick. This is how I do stuff. This is what is fun about life. Jumping into the unknown and then solving complex problems with little means. Working together with many different people. Communicating a lot. Creating trust quickly. Kicking asses with kind but determined words. All this is exciting. I love it. It is me. This is how I survived in the past. This is how I became who I am. Or rather: This is how I got to know who I have always been.
This time, however, this had consequences.
It was too much risk.
Too much trust.
Too much speed.
It put a colleague in danger.
Whenever I find out that who I am and how I do stuff can turn out scary for others, I get scared of myself. How can it be that I am completely fine with interacting with crazy people while others get scared, even traumatized? How can it be that I am not scared of the crazy people? Am I crazy myself?
The answer is “yes” — in some ways…
That was my conclusion after the phone call yesterday — a kind of “checking on me” after the incident conversation. I became aware of and was reassured that “this is just who I am.” The other person did not say I am crazy. But I took it to mean that the crazy aspects of my behavior were included in that “me.” It took another night of sleeping it over till I can see the good parts of it now. And the best part is: this experience has taken me back on track. It showed me the obvious which I lost sight of in the last few months — a time period in which I gradually started losing myself again.
Even though I had promised myself so many times that this would not happen anymore…
The truth is, I would not be doing what I am doing in university now without my entrepreneurial years. These four years of being a 100% self-employed shaped me so much. They let me live what I always wanted to be: a free spirit. Of course, you do not have to be an entrepreneur to be free. But for me, that was a big part of it. Whenever I feel tiny chains around me, I start getting choked internally. Usually, I do not notice it that quickly. That part of me sucks. My brain is too big and it has this shitty ability to suppress emotions for a long time. One of these emotions is anger and its counter part sadness. Those two I feel whenever I cannot live out all my potential and when I meet people who just try so hard to be assholes all the time. I know, we can all be assholes at times but if we are happy with what we do, the likelihood that we end up bitter and nasty is just smaller.
And I know that people love me most when I am happy.
So, what I want to get at is that in the entrepreneurial, especially the startup world, there is much craziness. For people inside, there is nothing crazy about it. But for outsiders, the normal people who are employed somewhere, entrepreneurship is crazy. “Normal” people do not just quit their job from one day to the next. They do not just ask strangers to become their clients with a product that nobody has ever seen or thought of before. And normal people do not just risk their entire existence just for the sake of being “free,” of being creative, of having nobody to tell them when to be where and who to work with. Entrepreneurs do all that. And they still take responsibility for people — clients and/or employees.
I have done that.
And it felt great.
Every day felt like being myself.
I met more inspiring (crazy) people.
Had wonderful and deep conversations with them.
I got up smiling every day.
At least for the most part …
The page turner came when I realized that I had a social responsibility that went beyond fun. I had this impulse that I have to “teach” and share my experience — maybe more than that. Maybe I want to share my entire “being” with younger people to encourage them to walk their own path and find out who they really are. That “calling” felt really strange because I always hated teaching. I still do. I am sorry to say that. I am a bad teacher. I expect too much. I am too strict. I am too crazy when it comes to methods and topics. Still, people are convinced I should be a professor and teach. Just yesterday, I started whining again about my university job. Somebody told me, working in university is an “honorable” job. I asked back: “Who the hell benefits from an “honorable” job” (German: Wem bringt das was)? This was her response:
This touched me. She is not someone who utters a single word that is not meant honestly. Her questions and thoughts are sharp as a knife. She did not say this to just cheer me up. Still, I was depressed because I felt stuck. I still carried around all this blame and the self-shame about what had happened the day before. I always talk about leadership responsibility and care and now I showed that someone who is such a risk-taker and adventurous alpha woman should not be trusted as a decision-maker in a function where safety is the first priority. And it showed me that I am all over the place. If I am supposed to teach, I am not supposed to do 100 other things; including studying for another degree, coaching, chaplaincy, writing, giving talks…
Only this morning did I realize: These things are exactly the ones that characterize entrepreneurs.
They characterize me.
They are not hurting.
They are essential.
You would not survive without them.
And this insight gave me orientation again. It pointed to the obvious. All this time, these past months, I have been trying to force myself into a corsette again. I have been moving around in an environment where people have basically one topic on their minds throughout their life and that is about all they think about. After a while, this is what they become to some extent. And I know this. I said “no” to this for so many times. Still, I got trapped again in this culture of feeling forced to find the one thing, the one topic, the one personality to be in the ivory tower. But that is bullshit. I am exactly this person who is crazy enough to see things other people do not see and to then go for it or at least make others see it. And this also means that you share quite a bit with crazy people. They also see stuff that does not really exist. And they act accordingly. It is called hallucinating in the clinical context. It is called visionary leadership in the business world.
This text is at a point now where you might ask — ok, so what? Now she has found out she is crazy and she is even happy about it! What does that mean for her volunteering work? What does it mean for her colleagues? What does it mean for herself? The answer is very clear: nothing or at least very little! This answer was already given to me yesterday before I was able to believe it. It is only a matter of perspective. Yesterday I was not ready to embrace the craziness as a strength. Other people are. They see me like this. They love me like this — at least some do. And that makes me smile. :o) But it always takes this sort of “fall” first and the reflection thereafter to fully realize the strengths. And this does not mean that I am being blind to the downsides of it.
As a thinking and responsible and even faithful human being, I will never give up doubting, I will never give up asking questions, including the unpleasant ones about myself. I know my parents got sick of it when I was a child. There was nothing I did not ask questions about. That has not stopped. That inner child is still very much alive. And what all this taught me is that I will keep it alive. If I do not, I will lose who I am, no matter how frightened I get about myself on days like yesterday. But that also has a childlike twist to it (not a pathological childishness to just get that straight…). Days like these do not repeat themselves forever. I get back to normal quite quickly and evolve stronger and more positive than before. And the most important thing is that I feel myself again. Whenever I lose myself, that ability gets lost. And that dims the light in me that makes others smile.
A friend of mine mentioned the term “toxic positivity” a few days ago. It sounds a bit negative but it really highlights how strong you can be if you just hold on to your somewhat stubborn belief that everything will turn out fine, no matter how hard, difficult, and sad a situation appears. It does not take God and the Bible to do this — but it does not harm either. What I am saying is that this kind of attitude for me is inherently bound to my entrepreneurial days and my fascination with entrepreneurial figures. Yes, they are crazy to some extent but they do change the world quite a bit. And the companies they found are not even the major point. These people and the energy they spread are inspiring and even infectious. Entrepreneurs have an ability to attract people who can also move things. That is what “toxic positivity” can do in the world.
So, in the end, this text is leading nowhere except for a truly theological and educational statement: In order for others to accept us the way we are, we have to find out what this true nature is in order to then accept it ourselves and act upon it without compromise. In moments like yesterday, I tend to excuse myself for who I am. That is ok. Days like these have to happen. I am a human being. If I refused to acknowledge that I have these bad days of self-doubt, I would not be myself either. But people who really mean what they say when they say they take you, like you, and maybe even love you how you are, they do not get annoyed by the bad and weak days. They still see the light and the strength in you. And you know what is best about these people? They have this ability to not take you too seriously. That is not because you are crazy but because they do not take life and themselves too seriously.
That is what HUMOR is all about.
This is a truly new lesson in my life.
I always loved making people laugh.
But I never met people who made me laugh about myself in really bad situations.
Now I have found them.
“Life is too important to be taken seriously.” — Oscar Wilde
Reflexion Questions
1) Do others ever use the adjective “crazy” when talking about you? If yes, what does it feel like?
2) Are you a risk taker? In which contexts?
3) How important is humor for you when choosing new friends/acquaintances?