Anita’s Manifesto

I found a flash drive in Anita’s desk a couple of days ago full of documents, many similar to this. This was written while we lived in Chicago, before she had a job in Atlanta and more than two years before she started her own (service oriented) business.

Her “thoughtfullness” point hits her spot on. Never have I seen someone who would spend such time to undertsnad every nuance of something, just so that she could not be caught off guard or seem slow witted. Of course, that was not the only reason, but she knew her weakness when it came to quick, deductive thinking so she fingued out a way around it. And did it - no small feat.

To elaborate on her third point, I would describe her as genuine and with great integrity and a gentle wisdom. She did care about people and not just about what they were doing. She made it a point to learn about people she met. At the same time, she also had an uncanny ability to read people fairly quickly. It’s almost as if she had this library of phychology in her mind that allowed her to quickly analyze people and see inside them. She had a great, warm smile that welcomed people in, and a disarming demeanor that made you want to open up to her within moments of meeting her. People have told me this time and again.

The part about me – and the footnote – I remember telling her those things. She often said during that time, “If I could only save $100,000, then I could start my own business,” without worrying about bankrupting her family was her underlying fear.  She read and researched relentlessly on businesses and investments to a point where she talked herself out of everything (see her warning on item #2). But I saw her potential and always encouraged her to take a chance on herself. I belived in her and knew she would be successful in business, she just had to believe that.

My Manifesto

1/30/05 Entry:

The “why” of my existence was answered rather early in my walk with God – obviously, it is to please and worship God and serve to do His good pleasure and act according to His pleasing and perfect will. That is the easy part, really. The harder part for me, the part that required much more “noodling” so to speak, was the “how.” Again, there is a part of the “how” question that is easy and obvious. The answer, in part, is in everything you do – in the way you pray, the way you raise your children, the way you relate to your spouse, the way you do your job, the way you clean your house, the way you treat your body, the way you honor your parents – well, just everything. But I truly believe that aside from this general purpose to worship, praise, please and serve Him in everything I do, there is a definitively unique contribution that I have to make in the body of Christ, one that manifests from certain spiritual gifts that have been given just to me. It is this unique part of the “how” of which I seek.

My husband said something really enlightening today.[1] He said that I should not focus on my likely success as a lawyer (a profession I do not particularly enjoy), but rather focus on what specific qualities make that career path – and, importantly, presumably others – a good fit for me. So that is what I am trying to do. I’ve come up with a few:

• Thoughtfulness: Not in the “considerate” way, but in the “thinks a lot about things” kind of way. Deep down inside, I truly believe this was borne of my life-long acknowledgement of my lack of quick-wittedness. When you are kind of a slow, careful and deliberate thinker, yet you are constantly put in situations where you have to appear to think quickly, then the only solution I’ve come up with is to think sufficiently about the topic beforehand so that whatever issue might come up, you’ve already thought it out and can whip out (what appears to be) a really quick, well-reasoned response. Well-reasoned – well, hopefully. Quick – not even close. I guarantee you that whatever that “quick”-seeming response was, it came from hours and hours of careful thinking, pondering, turning it over in my head, looking at it from every angle for holes and filling them, kind of process.
• Love of in-depth research: I think this habit falls naturally out of point 1. When you’re always looking for every angle and weakness, then necessarily you are driven to know every angle intimately so you can know what those weaknesses are and how to respond. Thus, I have unwittingly become kind of an “info”-phile – a person who researches and researches and researches until I know a topic inside out, as if such a process can protect me from any surprises down the road. I know now that no amount of wisdom can protect me, only the Lord can do that, but marshalling my resources carefully can help me make a sound decision in the midst of many options and competing concerns. (Note: Be careful of paralysis by analysis. You’ve got a gut too – sometimes, you just have to go with it.)
• Finally – and this is the most difficult trait to describe – it’s my people-skills. I’m not even sure what they are really. All I know is that people, at first notice, generally like me, and I genuinely like and am interested in them. And that seems to create this kind of “magic” between us where I’m pretty insightful about them – their wants, needs, and desires – and they feel wanted and welcome around me. That’s about as much as I’ve ever understood it.

Oh there are others – drive, determination, intelligence – and on and on, but those are really too general and sporadic to be of much help, I think. As much as I am driven, I am lazy about certain things and under certain circumstances, as much as I am determined I can be wishy-washy at times, and smart though I am, I do, say, and think dumb things. I think the three points above most appropriately pinpoint and flesh out (a little) those things that are uniquely “me” and provide a tiny insight into what I – Anita Schick – should be doing to please Him.

This thought cannot end without a consideration of why a service-related business is so, I don’t know, repugnant to me. I think it’s because services are so inherently limited. Services are necessarily limited by time, and we all know that time is one of the most limited and wasted commodities on this earth. I just cannot get excited about trafficking in such an ephemeral item. Now goods – that’s something I can get behind. If you can offer people a tangible “thing,” and that “thing” makes their lives better, and somehow can serve Him better, then it is much more feasible that you can reproduce that “thing,” ad infinitum, on and on, forever and ever, until He comes back for us. And that’s what I want. I don’t want my worship to be limited. I want it to multiply and increase, much like the two fish and five loaves, until there is enough to “feed” the masses.

Now THAT’S an idea I can get behind.

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[1] The other really, really good thing he said was this – this next step you take, it’s going to be a leap of faith. Accept it. You’ll never have enough money, you’ll never know enough, to remove all risk from the equation. You must have faith that God will give you everything (and more) that you need to proceed along the path He’s laid before you. But you can’t avoid all risk because that’s what faith is all about.