The Quiet Work

[00:00:24] Alrighty. And welcome back to Sheboygan Stories and how's it unheard of? Hi, I'm your host, Scott Labonte. [00:00:30] Today's episode isn't built around a guest. [00:00:32] It isn't built around some big flashy announcement. [00:00:36] It's built around something that I've been sitting with since my last conversation with Jimmy. [00:00:40] If you listen to episode 21, you heard us reconnect almost about a month or so after he moved in, almost a month after he moved into his own place. [00:00:48] Conversation was good. It was honest. [00:00:51] He was definitely a man of few words. [00:00:54] And I left there thinking about that. [00:00:58] I think sometimes we expect transformation to sound dramatic. [00:01:02] We expect big reflections, big realizations, big emotional statements. [00:01:09] But what if real progress is quieter than that? [00:01:12] What if stability sounds ordinary? [00:01:18] See, were programmed or trained, I guess, to be addicted to big stories. [00:01:27] We love these big before and after stories. You know, before there was chaos, afterwards there was clarity, before there was the sidewalk, afterwards it was an apartment. [00:01:37] That's not how life actually unfolds. [00:01:41] Take a look at some of the media narratives. [00:01:44] If you pay attention to how the homelessness is covered in the media, it usually swings pretty extreme. [00:01:49] It's either crisis, there's tense crime, emergency, danger, or it's redemption. Someone's getting housing, someone gets a job, reunites with family, something of that nature. And I get it. [00:02:01] Media works in headlines, it works in contrast. [00:02:04] But real life doesn't move in headlines. [00:02:07] Most people aren't living in a dramatic rise or fall to living somewhere in the middle. [00:02:14] They're trying to stabilize, trying to figure out paperwork, trying to manage anxiety, trying to keep a job for more than a few weeks. [00:02:22] That doesn't quite make for a compelling 90 second segment, but it's real. [00:02:28] And that's where most of the work happens. [00:02:32] When we only show crisis or triumph, we erase the quiet middle. And the middle is where the change usually sticks. [00:02:42] Take a look at our social media highlight reels, stuff like that. [00:02:47] Social media has trained us to expect visible progress before and after photos, milestone posts, big announcements. [00:02:55] We rarely see posts. [00:02:58] The weeks where nothing dramatic has happened, that's usually a pretty good thing. [00:03:04] There's no eviction, no relapse, no emergency room visits, just stability. [00:03:12] But stability doesn't photograph well. You can't take a picture of, hey, I paid my rent again this month. [00:03:18] Can't post a selfie if I handled my anxiety without blowing up my life. [00:03:22] So we start to believe that if it isn't visible, it isn't meaningful. [00:03:27] And that's simply not true. [00:03:30] Take a look at fundraising language. You know, we use this quite a bit with pay it forward or any, I guess any nonprofit organization. [00:03:39] So even a non profit work and kind of tying in with that. I'll include us with that. I'll include myself. [00:03:46] We often feel pressured to tell the most dramatic version of a story. Donors want impact. [00:03:52] Impact sounds like transformation. [00:03:55] He was homeless, now he's thriving. [00:03:58] But sometimes the truth is more complicated. [00:04:01] Sometimes it's, he was homeless, now he's housed, and he's still working through trauma. [00:04:10] That doesn't quite feel as tidy, but it is honest. [00:04:14] The quiet work doesn't always fit neatly in a fundraising paragraph. [00:04:19] But that doesn't mean that it's any less valuable. [00:04:22] In fact, it's often the hardest part. [00:04:26] And think about these success stories. [00:04:29] We love that phrase, success story. [00:04:32] But success according to who? [00:04:35] Is success a job? [00:04:37] Is it a car, total independence? [00:04:41] Or is success? Staying housed for six months after being years outside is success. Rebuilding trust with one person is success simply not giving up? [00:04:55] When we define success too narrowly, we unintentionally create shame for people whose progress doesn't look so dramatic. [00:05:04] And I think we really need to widen that definition. [00:05:07] Because sometimes success is maintenance, Sometimes success is ordinary. [00:05:16] Housing is often treated like the finish line, but housing isn't the finish line. [00:05:21] It's the starting line of a completely different kind of work. [00:05:26] And that work, yeah, it's quiet. [00:05:31] So what does this quiet work actually look like? [00:05:35] Well, quiet work looks like learning how to sleep indoors again. [00:05:41] Or it looks like adjusting the silence when you use constant noise. [00:05:46] It looks like figuring out how to manage bills. [00:05:49] It looks like staring at four walls and realizing you don't actually know how to sit still yet. [00:05:56] It's realizing the mental load doesn't disappear. [00:05:59] Your trauma doesn't evaporate. [00:06:02] Loneliness can actually increase. [00:06:05] And structure has to be built from scratch. [00:06:08] There's no ribbon cutting for that. There's no applause, just repetition. [00:06:15] I've seen this a lot at the day center too. People assume that if someone gets housed that they are good now. [00:06:21] But sometimes that's where the real emotional work begins. [00:06:27] So thinking back to this interview with Jimmy, you know, with fewer words, fewer words usually mean more. [00:06:36] Sitting with Jimmy, I realized that he didn't need to give me powerful monologue. [00:06:43] The fact that he showed up steady, present and housed, that was the story. [00:06:51] We need to get more comfortable with progress that doesn't perform for us. [00:06:58] Sometimes fewer words means someone is finally just living. [00:07:02] Not surviving, not proving, just living. [00:07:09] So with all of this Going on, you know, that quiet work often gets missed. [00:07:17] How and why do we miss that quiet work? [00:07:21] Well, I think we miss it because it doesn't move us emotionally in the same way that crisis does. [00:07:25] Crisis demands attention. [00:07:28] Stability generally. Whispers. [00:07:33] If you followed this podcast, if you listened to most of the episodes, or even some of them, and you listened a couple back, I did one on parallels between education or special education and homelessness and kind of a maintenance versus milestone type thing. [00:07:51] I see this a lot. In education, we celebrate the milestones. [00:07:57] Kids reading at grade level, graduating meeting an IEP goal. [00:08:01] And those are important. [00:08:03] But what people don't always see is the maintenance, the daily supports, the repetition, the check ins, the reteaching. [00:08:12] Sometimes the real victory isn't a new milestone. It's maintaining stability. [00:08:16] It's not regressing, it's holding steady. [00:08:21] And holding steady can take more work than people realize. [00:08:26] And that's true in housing too. [00:08:28] Staying housed is its own milestone, even if it doesn't look that dramatic. [00:08:35] Another example could be, I guess, okay, let's non profit work. [00:08:40] There's often pressure to show measurable impact. [00:08:44] You know, numbers served, outcomes achieved, success rates. [00:08:48] But what about the days when someone just comes in, sits down, and they don't spiral? [00:08:54] What about the weeks when there's no crisis? [00:08:58] It's not flashy, doesn't always fit into a report, but that is stability. And stability is progress. [00:09:06] Even parenting. [00:09:09] Parenting teaches this as well. [00:09:12] The big moments stand out, you know, first steps, first words, graduations. [00:09:17] But most of parenting is maintenance. It's routines, it's boundaries, it's showing up, it's repeating yourself, it's keeping things steady so growth has room to happen. [00:09:28] And you don't get applause for that, but that's where the real work is. [00:09:33] Anybody that knows us or follows us, you know, Kathleen and I, you know that we're raising Madeline. [00:09:41] And raising Madeline has shown this to me in a little deeper way, I think. [00:09:46] There have been big moments, sure, but most of what matters has been the quiet consistency. [00:09:53] Doctor's appointments, therapies, adjustments, and a whole lot of patients. [00:09:58] Sometimes success wasn't about moving forward dramatically. It was about holding ground. [00:10:04] It was about creating enough stability that growth could happen at its own pace. [00:10:10] So maintenance isn't flashy, but maintenance is where life happens. [00:10:18] It is where trust is rebuilt. It is where habits are formed, and it is where healing has time to settle in. [00:10:25] We just don't always stop to recognize that. [00:10:30] So if you're listening and you care about this issue, and I know many of you do. And I really appreciate that you followed our journey good, bad, and otherwise. Everything that's happened in between. [00:10:39] I want you to understand something. [00:10:41] Not every story ends in a dramatic turnaround. [00:10:45] Sometimes success is no police contact. This week, your rent is paid on time. [00:10:51] Showing up to an appointment, staying sober another day, and simply not giving up. [00:10:59] And that is enough. [00:11:02] That's the quiet work that deserves respect. [00:11:07] So this episode doesn't have a big reverse big reveal. [00:11:12] It's reflective. It's steady. [00:11:16] And maybe that's fitting, because the people we talk about on this podcast aren't characters in some big story. [00:11:22] They're human beings doing quiet work every single day. [00:11:28] And if you've ever done quiet work in your own life, rebuilding, healing, stabilizing, you know it rarely comes with applause, but it still matters. [00:11:41] Thank you for listening. [00:11:44] If this podcast made you think differently about progress, share it. [00:11:48] Follow the podcast on whatever platform you listen on. [00:11:51] And, as always, keep your heart open and pay it forward.