Personal Reflection: Exhaustion, Politics & Faith

I have had a rough time over the past few months. I have been working a lot of hours so this all probably boils down to working too much and getting burned out, but it has caused me to reflect on a lot of issues which have newly manifested since I commissioned. As I have said in other posts, I am a Christian and this post will contain many of my own personal beliefs. If my beliefs offend you, feel free to tune out now.

Daniel 6: The Plot Against Daniel

My pastor recently preached a message from Daniel 6, and in my Bible it is titled The Plot Against Daniel. Lately, I feel like everyone around me is plotting against someone else. We have a billion Lieutenants in my squadron and everyone is constantly moving around to different positions. If someone is slotted for a position they don’t want, someone is probably plotting to get that person back to where they want them to be. Sometimes it is the person, sometimes it is the person’s supervisor, or sometimes it is someone else with a vested interest. For me personally, it is exhausting. I have witnessed first-hand what some people will do to get what they want. I have also witnessed what back-stabbing can look like, and it disgusts me. The purpose of this post is not to dissuade you from joining the Air Force or the 13S career field, it is to give you an idea of what you can expect once you join. In my opinion stuff like this is a reality and will never go away, but knowing what to expect and how to deal with it can be the key to maintaining a positive attitude and making it through unscathed. Also note this may look very different in the 13S career field vs. other career fields.

Daniel 6: 1-3: Excellence

6 It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom one hundred and twenty satraps, to be over the whole kingdom; ² and over these, three governors, of whom Daniel was one, that the satraps might give account to them, so that the king would suffer no loss. ³ Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm.

This is the third or fourth time in the past few months that I have seen references to the Air Force Core Values in the Bible. “An excellent spirit” was in Daniel, and that caused him to stand out among his peers. Daniel 1-5 tells us the story of how Daniel was taken from his home and how he became a top adviser to King Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar of Babylon. Now that Babylon had fallen, Daniel was placed in a position of authority once again for the new kingdom under King Darius.

I don’t think it was an accident that Daniel continued to be recognized through different regime changes. There was something about Daniel that caused him to be successful and respected by multiple rulers. How many Obama Administration advisers are still employed at the White House under President Trump? I believe Daniel was good at what he did. I believe he was intelligent, wise, and loyal to his beliefs. I believe he lived his life and tried to be excellent in all that he did, and he was recognized for doing so.

Daniel 6: 4-5: Integrity

⁴ So the governors and satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find no charge or fault, because he was faithful; nor was there any error or fault found in him. ⁵ Then these men said, “We shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.”

One area I have been struggling with is finding my identity as an officer vs. a NCO or SNCO. After the first 18 months I decided to stick with what I was good at which was keeping my head low and doing my job well. That was my strategy for the previous 10 years and it always served me well, I was eventually recognized for my work and commissioning through OTS just fell into place. However, minor differences with being an officer have really thrown me off. For example, I always just kept a few close personal friends and kept everyone else at arms-length. Professionally I knew and related to everyone, but off-duty I focused more on my family and those few close friends. As a TSgt this worked out because there were never very many other NCOs who wanted to hang out. Now, there are a billion other Lieutenants in my squadron so I find myself being invited to tons of social gatherings. Now that I have started my masters, I have even less time to maintain relationships with more people. This all may sound very silly, but it marks a fairly large change in my life, and the lives of my family.

Another change is the political posturing that everyone is doing right now. I never worried about what my next job would be because my supervisors always set up my path for me. As an officer this is still the case for my own career, but now I have to start thinking about my subordinates. If I want them to succeed I have to play the game on their behalf. I didn’t realize this before, but I would say about 80% of an officers path is set up by their superiors. This percentage is much higher than I initially expected. If a young Lieutenant has missed an opportunity, it is likely because his or her superior didn’t get involved in the politics early enough, or didn’t work with the right people.

The fact that the governors and satraps could find no charge or fault in Daniel speaks volumes about Daniels integrity to his own beliefs. As an officer I have realized I need to maintain integrity not only to my own beliefs, but to who I am. Just because I am invited to a social event doesn’t mean I have to attend. If attending it isn’t ‘me’, then I should stay true to who I really am and do what ‘I’ want to do. Similarly, sometimes how I play the political game doesn’t feel like ‘me’ doing what I would normally do, so I should do it my way. Unfortunately, it isn’t as black and white as this. As an officer I am being molded into something new so the definition of ‘me’ is changing. So how in the world am I supposed to stay true to who I am? To be honest, I have no idea. I hope to blog about this as I figure it out. As of now I plan to start by staying true to my beliefs and trying to consider in advance who I want to be. Hopefully by starting there I can maintain control of the type of officer I become.

Daniel 6: 10: Confidence

¹⁰ Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days.

One thing that was drilled into me since Day 1 of OTS was the word confidence.  No matter what you did as a cadet, they were looking for you to do it with confidence.  If you had no idea what you were doing, it wasn’t quite as bad (most of the time) if you did it with confidence.  The expression “fake it till you make it” comes to mind.  I haven’t fully explored how this looks as an officer, but off the top of my head I think there is value in being a confident leader, but it is more important to know what you are doing.  In the post I did about my “18 Month Update,” Click Here, I talk about how in my opinion we as Lieutenants should spend as much time as possible building up a foundation of operator knowledge.  Confidence is obtained through this knowledge, and at the end of the day you will be a much better leader if you can have true confidence vs. faked confidence.  There will be times where you will need to blindly charge ahead with confidence, but in my opinion that time should not occur while we are Company Grade Officers.

Despite the targeted training and cliche of confidence, I have found becoming an officer has actually shaken my own personal confidence.  As a TSgt I had a lot of time to get comfortable, become an expert, and become extremely good at it.  Everything moved slower because there was no major rush for us to move on to the next thing.  Through this stability, by the time I had to make decisions I 100% knew what I was doing.  There was no shaking my confidence because I had the experience to make well informed decisions and stand by them.  As a 13S my job is constantly changing.  I start crew as an operator then there are rumors that I may move, but no-one will tell me where.  Finally I get a quasi official notification that I will switch flights and do a different job, but no-body can tell me when.  After it is all sorted out and I am trained the slot I’m supposed to fill is suddenly critically manned, and I needed to be certified two weeks ago.  Even if you are on the more routine path of an operator, things move fast.  You are expected to be an expert from Day 1 and be ready for the next thing a week later.  If you aren’t, you are behind the power curve.  It is easy for me as a prior enlisted officer, but I don’t know how anyone else without that foundation of experience can truly keep up.

On a more personal note, it is hard to explain how this lack of stability affects my confidence.  I think some of it is my personality because I am a person of routine and order.  Taking away that may seem minor, but not having a minor thing you are accustomed to can start you off limping.  It just shakes me up a little bit before I even get started, which causes me to take longer to get comfortable.  More practically, my stress level is elevated.  I am sometimes more distracted when around my family the day before I go back to work.  I have never had a problem with my temper before, but now there are times when I slightly lose my cool.  I have always been very methodical and careful about how I choose my words, but now I often find myself regretting minor things I say.

Trust

Another thing which messes me up is with my trust of those I work with.  I am an extremely good judge of character so once I know you, I know if you are someone I can trust.  While I was enlisted once I knew my coworkers that trust never had to change, it was very black and white based on the person.  Either you were one of the good ones that I trusted, or you weren’t.  As an officer, the political piece plays a larger role.  It is much more difficult to have a blanket list of people you trust, or people you don’t.  Now there are people you can trust with certain things but can’t trust with other things.  Now there may be someone that you can trust outside of work and you can be best buddies with, but at work you have to watch yourself because they may stab you in the back.  Some people you may think you can trust, but later they will reveal more cards and you aren’t so sure.  This all makes life very exhausting.  It shakes my confidence because if there is something that needs to get done, you aren’t always sure who you can go to for help.  Sometimes you have to go to people you don’t really trust, then you have to think through the implications.  I am getting good at this game, but I hate that I have to play it.

Tying it all Together

The reason this passage spoke to me is because Daniel thought he could trust the king.  The king liked Daniel, and he was so impressed with Daniel’s work that he put him in charge of the entire kingdom.  After his jealous co-workers out-maneuvered him and spoke to the king behind his back, he was required to either betray his beliefs and rituals of his faith or face certain death.  Despite being out-maneuvered he didn’t despair, he confidently faced reality and accepted certain death by boldly and confidently continuing to pray.  The rest of Daniel 6 (verses 18-28) explains how God miraculously saves Daniel in the lion’s den and how Daniel continued to prosper.

Conclusion

I am pretty exhausted at the moment, and the new environment of officership is shaking what I used to rely on; the consistency and routine of life.  Now that I am continuously being pushed past my limits, I am forced to fall back on whatever I have left which is who I am:  my faith and my family.  For me, falling back on my faith means re-calibrating my routines.  I can no longer ignore the fact that I need to set aside personal time of prayer and reflection with God reading His word and reflecting on what He is telling me to do.  Through that new routine I will find the strength to continue on this journey of officership and with leading my family through life.  I am truly grateful that I am being asked to grow in this way.