“I JUST WANT TO STAY OUT OF JAIL”
I met with Chris yesterday for the first time. He’s almost 30 years old, just had a son less than two weeks ago, and reports he is couch-surfing but currently staying with the baby-mama because it works out for her to get help with the baby. She’s probably hoping Chris will figure it out sooner than later as well.
Chris was recently revoked and reinstated to probation in 2021 and 2022 cases and ended up on my caseload this time. In our conversation, I learned he’s still going through the court process on several additional cases in our district which he had outstanding warrants in because he went off the grid for a while, and he also has a pending felony case in an adjacent county which he’s going through the court process on.
He’s currently unemployed and reports he’s feeling stuck because he has no transportation, and he needs money for tools. As I listened to his story (and the many excuses), I was thinking to myself, “friend, you’re stuck for sure… but it has nothing to do with transportation and a lack of tools…”.
When I first meet someone who’s already failed on probation, I usually ask them what outcomes they’d like to see different this time around. I did this with Chris, and with body language that appeared very overwhelmed by his circumstances, he said, “I don’t know… I just want to stay out of jail.” Given his current dilemma, those are realistic wishes, and yet, I couldn’t help but challenge him to consider how low his expectations were. I’ve always believed you can be painfully honest and blunt with a person as long as they know you care about them. It’s a gamble though in the first appointment because things could go sideways if I’m not careful, but given Chris’s track record, the odds were reasonable I may not see him in my office again because of his tendency to go off the grid.
… and that is a small portion of Chris’s story today…
Then… there’s Andre…
DOING GREAT IN JAIL
I missed a call earlier this morning while I was in an appointment. When I heard the voicemail, it was someone calling from the jail who didn’t leave their name. I quickly went through the jail population list to see who may be trying to get ahold of me and I saw several names I was familiar with. Andre’s stood out though because it would be just like Andre to call and not leave his name on the recording.
Several hours later I got another call from the jail and answered. Sure enough, it was Andre on the other end of the phone calling to let me know he was thinking about me, and he just wanted me to know. Some may think that is an unnerving thing to know someone is sitting in jail thinking about you… but Andre and I have a good relationship. Several months ago, he met with me out in the community while he still had an active warrant, and we talked about the pros and cons of remaining on the run. At the end of the conversation, I encouraged Andre to turn himself in so we could begin moving forward putting together the pieces in his life, and although this would likely seem very inappropriate to my employer, he and I hugged and I wished him luck in fighting through all the obstacles he faced.
Well, fast-forward to yesterday and Andre wanted to touch bases. I asked how he was doing, and he said he was doing great now that he was in jail. As he continued talking, I interrupted him and told him that was the most pathetic thing I’d heard since…well, since my conversation a couple hours earlier with Chris! He questioned why and I responded, “because you’re telling me you need to be in jail in order for your life to be great?” He was quiet so I went on for a bit pointing out all the flaws in that perspective. I then asked him, “Andre, what are you prepared to do differently once you get out of jail so your life can be great on the outside?” He immediately said, “anything I have to do.” I called bullshit on that response, and he reacted a bit. I pointed out to him how that response is a commitment to do nothing different; “anything” might as well be “nothing” because he is committing to no plan at all to change the trajectory of his life.
Now I had him thinking… and he responded, “… okay?”
I went on… I challenged him to consider very practical steps that absolutely must take place in order for him to stop repeating the same cycle, steps that he WILL take… not “might take”.
He responded by saying “challenge accepted!” I love that guy! We’re going to meet in the jail next Friday to talk about what he’s thinking about. He has court again in a couple weeks so maybe we’ll have the opportunity to start taking those steps after court.
WHY AM I SHARING THESE STORIES TODAY?
I’ve said over and over in various blog posts how I’ve come to the conclusion that my life is not all that different from the lives of my clients. For someone new to this blog, let me clarify…
Sure, my clients are dealing with many barriers that I am not facing, economic challenges that come with being underemployed due to a criminal background, job interruption from incarceration, etc. Most of my clients do not have education beyond a high school diploma and some don’t have that. Although my clients are the offenders in our probation cases, any effort to understand their stories will reveal many have experienced very significant trauma at some point in their lives. As the saying goes… “hurt people hurt people.” I’m not at all trying to make someone feel bad for them, I just want to point out that they travel with a lot of baggage, and my clients are not defined simply by their criminal offense.
My clients are dealing with addiction issues, mental health issues, poverty… so many things about many of their stories are different from my own story, and yet, I am amazed at how I can find parallels in our journey that make me consider how the truths I see in their lives are also truths that I can be challenged with right where I am in my own journey.
SO, ABOUT THAT LOW BAR…
I’ve been challenged by the need to raise the bar of expectation in my own mindset. It’s not that the bar is low, but instead, it’s that the bar is simply not high enough. I’m doing well… my health has improved, I’m successful in my job, feeling effective in my efforts to challenge people to desire more from their lives. But I would say that right there is the issue for me…
I want to live my life in such a way that I’m not satisfied with things because they’re good enough. There are things I want to accomplish (and experience), and they are not going to happen on their own… I’ll be required to make a bigger commitment, make significant sacrifices, let go of a “good enough” mindset to make room for a “greater” mindset.
The greater things are so deeply personal to each of us. We will carry different images for what the “greater” things look like. For some, it may be more travel, for others, it may be cutting ties with an employer and starting a business, for many it is becoming connected to that creative energy within that manifests through music, art, writing, etc.
DON’T COMPARE YOUR STANDARDS TO OTHERS
So, to end this post before it leads to a much larger thought that’s screaming to get out of my head right now… you may have a higher bar than Chris. You may not be thinking you just want to stay out of jail. You may have a healthier mindset than Andre… you may not need to be locked away in order to experience sobriety and stability. You may look around at others and feel you are doing better than average in this life, but the problem with that thinking is that you were never wired to run anyone else’s race, you were wired to run your own race. The question then is this: “where have you grown accustomed to accepting a standard being “good enough” in your life; where have you accepted the bar being low?” Where have you allowed “average” to become your standard?
MOVING FORWARD
In future posts, the massive blob of thoughts running around creating havoc in my mind have to do with things that may be future posts titled something like “Fenced Pastures”; “The Blue Pill”; “Breaking from the Herd”; or perhaps I will take another crack at a previous post I added but then deleted titled “Compliance”.
I’ve got a massive 1000-piece puzzle in my head and any undiagnosed ADHD I may be battling with is creating quite the challenge for me to find the beginning and move forward. So, please accept this as a snippet of that 1000-piece puzzle.