Enduring the Pressure of Being an Officer

I have everything that anyone would ever ask for.  I have a loving and supportive wife, amazing kids, a great job that I love, I’m the top whatever percent of whatever lists are out there, I am surrounded by friends who would give up anything to help me out…  I literally can’t think of anything more that I would want.  Sure, it would be nice to have a brand-new car, a butler and a maid to do my chores and run my errands, but I’m okay without that…  I have what I need.  And yet, what if it wasn’t enough?  What if despite all of the many blessings I have in my life, I still felt unfulfilled?  What if despite the fact that everyone who knows me thinks I’m a superstar, I actually felt abandoned and alone?  What if living the life that I am living actually has burdened me beyond what I can take, and I feel like I have no escape?  If there is nowhere to run…  where do you hide?

If there is nowhere to run… where do you hide?

I have reached a point in my career where those are real feelings that I am dealing with.  I purposefully wrote those words with a dramatic flair, but those words came from a small voice that is actually living within me.  How does that happen?  Are these feelings that everyone has?  Is this the price we pay for volunteering to serve as officers in the United States Air Force?

Officer vs. Enlisted – Differing Expectations

I am a very passionate person who pours my heart and soul into everything I do.  As an enlisted guy, I was a high performer who won all of the awards and got all of the credit (well not all, but enough).  I didn’t ask for the credit or seek the awards, but I kept my head down and tried to be the best guy at every job I ever did.  I tried to make everything around me better so the next guy could have a better foundation to start with.  Because my jobs were more limited in scope than the jobs I have had as an officer, I didn’t have to give as much to make my mark.  The expectation was to maintain the program or mission, but I improved it; blowing away the expectation.

Now that I am an officer, the expectation is to improve.  Some officers actually improve the program or mission, and some officers don’t.  Some are happy with maintaining the status quo, while others think they are improving it but they are actually missing the mark.  Regardless of how officers are fitting into the expectation, the expectation is higher.  If you were used to being at the top, now you have to unlock a new level of performance within yourself to make the same type of mark as before.  In other words, there is an entirely new level of opportunity.

Sacrificing for the Mission

As the expectation was raised higher and higher, I had to run faster and faster.  Unlocking this new level of performance comes with a price, and it is our job as men, women, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers to maintain our personal balance while we pay this price.  In my opinion, Service Before Self is a long-term dedication to series of short-term sacrifices.  If your scheduled shift is over but the on-coming shift isn’t certified to load the F-16 with munitions, Service Before Self is staying late to get the job done so the F-16 can execute it’s mission.  Service Before Self is not consistently staying in the office late to do things that can wait until tomorrow.

I spent the past two years living this sacrifice.  I started at the basic level operator but every 4-6 months I was advanced to a new position.  In each position, I was able to push the boundary and define a new level of performance for the mission.  I didn’t work hard only because I wanted to, I worked hard because the mission demanded it.  If there was a mission need, I stepped up and filled the gap.  It was exhausting, but at the same time it was…  fun.

The Cost of Stratifications

At different times throughout this seemingly awesome journey, I assessed the balance of my life.  At the end of the first year, I found myself on the list of stratified group lieutenants.  I was by no means trying to get there; I was too busy doing the mission…  but I was there.  How did I get there?  I looked around and assessed myself and my surroundings.  I was on the ops floor.  I was working overtime for the Nth consecutive week, and I was exhausted.  It was late so I was starving.  There was still a massive pile of work on my plate that would take me months to get through.  I hadn’t worked out in weeks and I was way behind with homework.  My family missed me.  There were people with me on the ops floor, but at that moment it hit me…  I was alone.  Then it hit me again…  I had discovered the cost of that stratification.  Was it worth it?  Is this really what I wanted?

It was at this moment that I had a choice.  I could continue to press forward with my career, or I could pull back the throttle to reconnect with my family and catch up on homework.  Every officer has to make this choice at multiple times throughout their career, and this was my turn.

Making the Choice

I recognized that I needed to make the choice, but instead I deferred it.  I was slotted for a TDY and finals were right around the corner, so I decided to talk to my supervisor about my workload when I returned.  When I returned, I found out my co-worker was promoted out of the squadron, so now I was stuck in my position due to low manning.  I passed my college class, but I didn’t do as well as I had personally hoped.  I didn’t want to take a break from school because I was afraid life would just be busier when I tried to start back up, but it was getting harder and harder to motivate myself to do my homework.  My wife and kids stopped talking to me.  We talk about our day and catch up on daily life, but the conversation has no substance.  At first I was deliberate about spending time with them, but my wife is always distracted and my kids are always busy playing…  When I am there it is like I’m not even there.  She is now talking about taking the kids and staying with her parents for a while.

Surrounded by Darkness

I can’t admit this to anyone else, but I think I’m depressed.  I worked for more than two years to apply for this commission, and this isn’t anything like I thought it would be.  At first I loved the challenge, but now I realize it wasn’t worth the sacrifice.  I like the job so it isn’t completely about the job, I am just tired of the pressure.  I am tired of the constant deadlines, the low manning, and suffering from the decisions made by those above me.  I have been pulled so much faster than when I was enlisted, that now I am just exhausted.  I have been bearing the pressure since OTS and I just don’t want to do it anymore.  I want it to end.

Finding the Light

The last two paragraphs are false for me, but true to more people than we realize.  In reality, I made the decision to pull the throttle back and reconnect with my family and was ultimately rewarded with yet another job promotion.  While the story and description of the failing relationships with my family is false, the description of the constant pressure and resulting feeling of personal inadequacy is true.  The only difference between me and those who ultimately decide to take their own lives is how I react to the pain.  I have never reached the darkest pit of depression, but I have been close enough to see the bottom through a different lens.  Here is how I personally cope when I am ready to emerge from the darkness.

Balance

I think of my life like I am fighting a battle on three fronts:  work, family, and my education.  The reality of my life is that I don’t have enough time to be the lieutenant, husband/father, or student that I really want to be.  At any given time I am happy on where I am on two fronts, but disappointed in myself on the third.  As I progress through my life I am mindful of all three, but I only have time to manipulate one or two of the three.  When I was working those long hours I ended up neglecting both my family and my education.

While this is a great way to resolve the balance of your life in your mind, the reality is that you cannot sustain a battle on three fronts.  After I finished the last two years, I was completely burned out.  I no longer had the energy to sustain the level of performance I was at before on one front, let alone all three.  Once this happened I was surrounded by a feeling of hopelessness…  all I felt was failure.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t summon the motivation to pull myself out of the muck.  It became clear to me that I couldn’t play this game of life on my own.  Even today now that my life is more in balance, I can’t do this on my own.  I need help.

My Faith

When I am overwhelmed by the workload of my life, my spiritual disciplines are usually the first to be forgotten.  At specific points in my life I have experienced the benefit of simple disciplines such as praying or reading my Bible every day.  Although this is something I know I should do, a small voice inside me prevents me from doing it.  In this area of my life I am extremely stubborn, and the case can be made that my stubbornness is negatively affecting my life.  Through personal experience I know that if I let go of the stress and let God worry about all of the battles in my life on my behalf, the resulting decrease of stress will allow me to live my life with more freedom.  The increased freedom will then allow me to more effectively fight my battles.

My beliefs allow me to have something to lean on when I need help.  When I felt alone on the ops floor I was not alone, but I felt alone.  How does that work?  I secluded myself from my family and colleagues by erecting a physical barrier by being on the ops floor and physically away from my family, and an emotional barrier by focusing on work instead of connecting with my colleagues.  With my faith, I do the exact same thing.  God wants me to have and maintain a relationship with Him, but I have the free will to either nurture or ignore that relationship.  The difference between God and the people in this world is that God is always there; there are no barriers unless we artificially erect them.  By ignoring God I was able to spiral into a feeling of hopelessness.

The Paradox

How this practically works is a little bit of a paradox.  On a typical day I snooze my alarm 2-3 times and end up rushing to work, barely clocking in on time.  I work long days without a break, usually 10-12 hours.  After I get home I spend an hour or two with my family before I devote the next 4-5 hours to homework.  I try to get to sleep between midnight and one o’clock, then rinse and repeat.  How effective is this schedule?  I am highly effective at work, but 10-12 hours is a long time.  By the time I get home the 1-2 hours I spend with my family are more about me than my family, usually I am just trying to decompress from the day.  Similarly, the 4-5 hours is more about me than my homework.  At this point I am usually working very slowly and having a hard time focusing on the task at hand.  At the end of the night I am usually just trying to convince myself that it is totally cool to push whatever work is left to the following day.

The paradox in this is by adding 1 hour to the already packed schedule, I am in a better state of mind.  In the past I used to devote 30 minutes to an hour praying or reading my Bible either first thing in the morning, or at the end of my evening.  If I did this today, it could mean at hour 8-9 I may realize that I really don’t need to work that long; the extra 2-4 hours is me selfishly wanting to have a tidy inbox or show my boss I am dedicated to my job.  When I am home with my family I may be more sensitive to ensuring the time is quality time, vs. just be being present but absent.  I may have the motivation to tackle my homework aggressively and not waste my efforts because I am not 100% focused.  That one hour could provide the critical foundation for the rest of my day, if I had the discipline to make it a priority.  It could be the only time in my day that refreshes my soul and realigns my perspective to God’s perspective, keeping me better grounded on what is truly important.

Conclusion

Here are some points that I want you to take away from this post.

Pressure

The pressure of being an officer is real.  You must learn how to lean on others to help you when you discover your own version of emotional darkness.

Darkness

Everyone experiences this emotional darkness.  We must learn to recognize the warning signs in our friends, fellow officers (peers, subordinates, and superiors), Airmen, and civilian colleagues.

Sacrifice

The Air Force tells us that we are supposed to sacrifice for the mission, but sometimes the Air Force forgets to tell us that we are more important than the mission.  The mission will go on without us, but we only have one life and one family.

Stratifications

Stratifications can add to the pressure, and they do matter for us in certain situations, depending on what our long-term priorities are.  I will do a separate post on stratifications to increase your awareness of this and deflate some of the pressure.

Christianity

For me personally, I am a Christian.  In addition to leaning on others, I need to be better about leaning on God.  If you share my beliefs I could really use your prayer in this area of my life.