Arriving in Denver one spring day, I wheeled my suitcase to the cabstand. The fare to my hotel, I learned, would be $70, so I opted to save $30 and take a multi-passenger van instead, the kind that stops at each passenger’s hotel. A purely frugal decision, right?
Not exactly. I was there on business. On an expense account. Which meant that everything would be billed to my client who could well afford the $70 cab. But I’d somehow persuaded myself that saving the client those few bucks would make me look humble. Exemplary. A team player.
As I sat in the crowded vehicle waiting for the driver to recruit yet another fare, I began to feel strangely agitated. The feeling was so invasive that, rather than collapse into it I got curious about it – Where did THIS come from?
The nice thing about asking ourselves questions like that is that sometimes we get answers. The answer I got, was that choosing the crowded shuttle over a cab wasn’t humility. Nor was it a show of Boy Scout conscientiousness worthy of a merit badge. Nope. It wasn’t a virtue at all.
It was a depressing act of self-denial. Hard though it was to admit to myself, I didn’t feel important enough to justify the higher spend. Full stop.
And yet, understanding the reason for my agitation—not wanting to shortchange myself—quickly led to the awareness of what I did want: to ride directly to my hotel, in a roomy cab, and feel good about it.
With that revelation I “rebooted” – and scooted past six knees and out the door. The driver frowned as he returned my suitcase, and I sailed over to the taxi stand a free man.
We can’t know what we want until we know what we feel. But knowing what we feel isn’t enough. We’ve also got to give ourselves permission to express it or act on it. Unless we make that ok we’ll stay stuck in the van, vaguely miserable yet not believing we’re worthy enough to create the change we want.
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Paul Quinn is the author of The Big Ask: Unlock the Possibilities in Your Work, Life & Dreams with Courageous Requests, and narrates the audiobook.