Fair-weather idealism

Happy Friday everyone,

A core value across all Higher Ground organizations is Practical Idealism. Practical Idealism is the attitude of embracing the full scope of work involved in making an ideal a reality. As you hopefully recall from your onboarding, we contrast practical ideas with ‘cynical idealism’, which is the tendency to get frustrated with the world for not accommodating your ideals. (If you have not read our essay “Practical Idealism vs. Cynical Idealism”, let me know if you’d like a copy.)

I’ve recently started to think in terms of a related way in which idealism goes wrong: fair-weather idealism.

The expression “fair-weather friend” refers to a person who seems to appreciate you when things are going smoothly, but quickly abandons you at the first sign of inconvenience or friction. Fair-weather friendships don’t last in the face of conflict or even effort, because the supposed friend primarily values the fruits of a relationship with you, not getting to know and connect with your actual person.  

I think there is a comparable phenomenon when it comes to being an idealist. The “fair-weather idealist” is someone who genuinely values the idea of doing something of great impact. When such a person encounters an idealistic individual or organization, something good in them is awakened; they may fall in love with the possibility of doing grand, mission-driven work. In our case, they become excited by the thought of unlocking the potential of children. 

But what makes their idealism fair-weather is that they are not primarily drawn by the opportunity to do the actual work. Their motivation is not grounded in a real understanding of, and love for, the doing. What they fall in love with is the idea of being the type of person who does such work, the thought of being mission-driven, the image of pursuing a life of impact. The fact they value these possibilities reflects something positive in their character, but it is not what we’d call practical idealism.

Fair-weather idealists look like practical idealists when things are sunny, and they say and do all the right things in situations when such an outlook comes naturally. But their idealism folds as soon as things get hard. Because the conviction is not borne from a deep passion for the doing, but more of a passive response to idealism in others, the initial spell that had been cast quickly fades as it meets messy reality. 

I think when people are young, they are almost always a mix of practical idealism and fair-weather idealism. All of us start out muddled, and have to work out how we’re going to express our idealism. This is because at the beginning of our adult lives, we don’t necessarily understand what is actually involved in making an ideal a reality. We don’t yet know whether we really love the particular work we envision doing, or whether we just aspire to be the type of person who does. 

The same thing that happens when we are young adults first choosing a career, also happens fresh every time we take on a new responsibility later in life, or embrace the excitement of a new challenge we feel idealistic about. 

In all these cases, we start out enthused about an idea, and then at some point we discover how complicated it is to actually achieve a goal in reality.  We come to a crossroads: do we want to be practical idealists who embrace the full scope of the work, or do we want to become cynical about the external factors that seem to be sabotaging our efforts? Above, I described fair-weather idealism more as a pattern of character. But across individual lives that pattern emerges partially as a result of many specific, situational choices at many specific crossroads.

The crossroads

My own story is one of transitioning, repeatedly, from fair-weather idealism to practical idealism. 

Here is an example. When I first became a guide, I was very smitten with the idea of helping difficult children achieve their potential. I wanted to make a difference in their lives, to ignite their love of learning and self-respect. 

But the naively idealistic prototype in my head for a “difficult child” was a quiet, introverted child who had withdrawn from activity, and needed his soul to be awakened. I was not prepared for the bratty kid who was bouncing off the walls as if he had three cups of coffee before he came to school. That difficult child did not fit my mental model of the person I wanted to reach. And I had no idea what to do with the fact he seemed completely immune to my inspired attempts to interest him in work. 

What I felt in response was something akin to “this is not what I signed up for”.

My fair-weather idealism had reached a crossroads. I could, and I was tempted to, cynically give up on my idealism. Why are we enrolling kids like this? What is wrong with his parents that they let him play video games until 11pm every night? How can I be expected to deal with this when I have not received the relevant training? How come this student is put in my class when the other room has fewer kids?

Or I could, with some conscious effort, see solving this challenge as part of my ideal. “Helping difficult children” includes this type of child in this type of circumstance, something that, to me, was a new discovery. What is the need in this child that is not being met? Am I capable of meeting it, and if not, what do I need to do to become capable? Do I have the time, and if not, what do I need to do in order to acquire the time? Do I have the energy and mindset, and if not, how I am going to address my own feelings of resentment or defensiveness?

Fair-weather idealism is naïve about the amount of work involved. It doesn’t persist in a context where you don’t actually know what to do, the tools you imagined you have are not effective, and the effort involved is in part making peace with the need for humility about your own abilities. A simple-minded romanticism of using Montessori materials to inspire an unsettled child doesn’t persist when what is in front of you is a classroom of many children, each with individual needs manifesting as a dynamic interplay of personalities, along with a tight schedule that barely even gives you time to pause and think.  

When you are a fair-weather idealist, you constantly feel: this is not what I signed up for. 

But if you choose practical idealism, your attitude shifts to: I am choosing to sign up for whatever is required to actually achieve my goal in reality. You find yourself embracing the work involved in getting the outcome you thought you wanted. And you discover that the ideal—to serve and support and guide a child that is not yet peaceful—is actually there, calling you, before your eyes. It looks different than what you imagined way back when, and requires real work from you, but it is actually the very thing that called to the good in you. And, in any given moment of challenge, this choice is open to you.

This pattern has repeated itself in my career. Here is another example: When I was a new school leader, I felt idealistic about building a parent community. I had naturally embraced what we now think of as the Guidepost aspiration to “be the village that supports the parent”. I imagined parent education nights, workshops, coffee chats where I’d enlighten families on how to respect the nascent independent being emerging in their children. I was going to be the truth-sayer, the child-whisperer, the friend and guide to all these parents and guides who meant well but did not understand. 

And then… I found myself fielding complaints about late fees, about peanut allergies, about the traffic in the parking lot at pick up and drop off, about biting incidents and kindergarten readiness. I’d go from replying to the soccer mom’s snarky comment about how her old school started at 9am not 8:30, to chatting with a distracted dad getting off his phone for two minutes to give me some friendly advice about how I could incorporate more STEM into our after school programs, to consoling a new assistant guide who was inconsolably in tears because a three year-old said she wasn’t a good singer, to squeezing in a tour that showed up an hour late and expected immediate and total attention. This is not what I signed up for, I felt. 

My fair-weather idealism faced a reality test. I came in believing that human beings are basically good. That parents love their kids and are open to reason about what is best for them, that guides want the dignity of work not the pandering of entitlement, and that if I was honest and authentic, I could earn people’s trust. 

And now I found myself tempted to cynicism: in theory parents care, but what about these parents? Are they lazy and entitled and more focused on keeping up with the Joneses? 

Or do they care too, and I’m just not seeing it? That need for control, unrealistically high expectation, anxiety and anger, is it just an expression of caring? That longing for community, for meaning, for connection and trust, do they want it underneath? And maybe, just maybe, do they actually have legitimate concerns and insights? Could it be that in fact they are the truth-sayers and I am the one who needs to learn? 

If my ideal is to create a thriving community, then in practice what that means is falling in love with these parents, seeing the best in them, genuinely being open to the idea that they know their kids better than I do. It means taking their needs straight—why does that mom want to start at 9am? And I discover because she drops off her other special needs child to a school an hour away every morning, and it is out of a love for our program. Why does that dad care about STEM? Oh: because he feels guilty that he isn’t spending enough time with his kids at home, sees after school programs as a way of making up for that—and he actually has the life experience to know what students will find valuable. Why is that guide crying at the fact a child criticized her? It turns out that she grew up in a household where emotions were always bottled up, and it was a tremendous act of courage for her to be vulnerable.

The practical idealist, because he wants the ideal in reality, ends up seeing the full reality. With respect to other people, being an idealist about humanity often means reorienting towards curiosity and genuine observation, taking people’s words and actions at face value, and expecting to discover deeper truth and goodness in the relationship.

The examples from my experience are infinite. Whenever I first took on any challenge, my idealism was fair-weather. From my work in programs to marketing to operations, I’d take on fresh challenges and start out excited to solve a certain problem, and to serve the school teams I managed and through them the families and children they serve. I envisioned building new tools, consulting on complex cases, and creating a prepared environment for the educator and the school leader. 

But in practice, I always hit reality hard. I always found myself on a hamster wheel of small tasks that seemed disconnected from the goal, always found myself either chasing and nagging others, or being chased and nagged by others, I always felt like I was responsible for things I didn’t actually think I could control, and underappreciated in relation to the places where I could make an impact. 

In the face of communication loops and task lists, runarounds and workarounds, bureaucracy and betrayal, I always felt: “This is not what I signed up for.”

And at that point, my fair-weather idealism faced a choice: it would either devolve into cynicism, or transform into practical idealism.

This is not what I signed up for, I felt at the crossroads. But I always discovered that it was exactly what I signed up for. I signed up for the chance to actually achieve an ideal in reality. 

Idealism is hard because actually changing the world is hard. Think of the world we want. What will it take? What work, effort, magnanimity, strength is required? It is not the strength to do the easy thing, but to do the hard thing.

Nelson Mandela noted that “our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” What makes us powerful is our capacity to do the work to effect the change we want. Ultimately, the crossroads that a fair-weather idealist encounters is the choice between seeing oneself as a powerful, agential being capable of doing that work, or as a person incapable of the work necessary to effect real change. 

Idealism as a choice

Because our work is so meaningful, and our colleagues so admirable, we naturally feel positively about ourselves and others. It’s easy to be supportive when we’re feeling supported, to be open to feedback when it is presented in a constructive way, to step up and help out when we’re on an emotional high, to believe in human goodness when we see happy children, happy parents, and happy coworkers. 

Fair-weather idealism is in this way an automatic, transient positive response to circumstance. It is a form of drawing on the positivity of others when it is there. But, when it isn’t, fair-weather idealism ends up running on empty. It is a passive and reactive approach—smile when people smile at you, in effect— rather than a deliberate, chosen strategy for success.

Emotional positivity is a wonderful thing. But it is not what we mean by the core value of practical idealism. Core values are principles, they are guides to action that we self-consciously take on, orientations we choose to adopt moment-by-moment and which never become purely automatic. As much as fair-weather idealism looks like the real thing, it doesn’t serve the function of a core value. It isn’t a lamppost that can guide us out of darkness.

If we are only mission-driven when we feel good about how things are going, what happens in challenging situations—when emotions are fraught, when time is tight, when something doesn’t go as planned? When feedback comes in the form of a spitting insult, and truth and exaggeration are muddled into one lump sum? When we’re feeling overworked or underappreciated or misunderstood or exploited or homesick, when there’s strain in our personal relationships, when we’ve been blindsided by an unexpected life change, when we are just psychologically spent? We may love hearing our co-workers blithely tell us to fix an unimportant typo when life is a box of chocolates, but what happens when the same suggestion comes at a time when we’re already down in the gutter.

In such cases, we risk falling into the trap of externalizing, cursing circumstance and bemoaning just about everything. Seeing pettiness and small-mindedness everywhere, we may ourselves become petty and small-minded, respond defensively, and amplify our own insecurities and project them on others. The only way to avoid these destructive yet natural tendencies is to choose, as a matter of conscious principle, to focus on your practical power to effect change. To choose to see not the petty and the small, but the elevated and momentous in those around us. To choose to actually overcome the obstacles in front of us and not just surrender to them; to choose to respond to impatience with patience, anger with calm, impulsiveness with thoughtfulness; to choose to hear first and foremost the kernel of truth in everything thrown at us, and make the most of that truth; to choose to commit to being our moral best, and awakening and connecting with the best in others. To choose to be an idealist rain or shine rather than just in fair weather. 

The purpose of practical idealism is to keep idealism alive in our minds when we’re in the midst of challenges. By making a commitment to practicing this value, we orient ourselves towards repairing relationships, clarifying confusions, affirming emotions, generating ideas, solving problems, and achieving successful outcomes. We do it because we recognize that is the path most likely to net us the great success and happiness that our mission makes possible. In the end, practical idealism is a way of being, and that way of being is based on, and pointed towards, a conviction that truly making our ideal a reality is the most important thing in the world to us.

Have a great weekend,

Ray Girn
Chief Executive Officer
Higher Ground Education