“Πρόσεχε την έρημο μιας πολυάσχολής ζωής”

Beware the Busyness of a Barren Life

Socrates, Athens, ca. 420 CE

Socrates said, “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” It’s a wise caution. We need to take time to reflect as Leaders. But it’s hard because maintaining warfighting lethality is fast-paced. With the Mission comes constant demands, from Higher, & meeting the needs of a vast team. There’s so much military leaders must do.

I can see the Alaskan Tundra of my youth in my mind’s eye. You are not going to get a whole lot of lilies, tomatoes, or anything, out of that ground. The permafrost is especially barren.

If you’re lucky in Fairbanks you’ll get some rhubarb, & then if you really take care of the garden in summer’s light, you’ll have a harvest.

I encourage you to become increasingly self-reflective of your life, your journey, & your progress as a person, & as a leader. It’s a difficult practice, but infinitely worthwhile. Imagine the opposite of barren. A world bursting with life. With hope.

A practical tip: break out that Moleskine journal & just write out a sentence, or a paragraph, of how you’re doing in your inner world.

Some of us do this better over coffee. That’s the case with me. If so, find a friend that you trust, or a relative. If they’re far away FaceTime, and then ask each other, “how’s it going?

Tae Kim, when I got to the Teams, had been a SEAL Team chaplain, & then the BUDS chaplain for 5 years. He told me something deep. When he’d hop off the Helo at an outstation on CENTCOM deployment. And go meet the CO. That moment wasn’t about “kicking it” to ask what kind of cool
kinetic work they’d been doing. Instead, he would look that OIC in the eye, usually an LT platoon commander SEAL & ask, “how you doing” -asking with those simple words, “How’s it really going?”

It was an invitation. If that OIC or Commander took advantage of the chaplain’s moment, they were able to become reflective of their life, their welfare, their soul.

What does barrenness of a busy life look like for warriors?

Perhaps it’s that we don’t have communication with our kids now because we prized the mission, worked so much that they no longer want to engage with us as adults.

Or maybe it’s a marriage where somebody we loved kept putting their dreams to the side, yet we were so focused on serving that somehow we missed it.
Now that relationship needs to be rehabilitated or it simply didn’t make it.

Truthfully, an outcome of barren busyness is shame-we know that the relationship wasn’t what it could have been. But we have to forgive ourselves. To say God, I’m sorry. I believe I’m changing with your Help. And growing.

That’s a therapeutic thing to hold to. To acknowledge, “Man, I went through some heavies- but I made it through!”

For us who served, we can reflect on the hardship, losses, and think about what, and Who, propelled us through. And about how we’ve grown.

About LCDR Carlson:
Kit Carlson is a Navy Chaplain. He has served alongside Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, & Special Forces, and has completed three deployments. In 2020, the Navy sent him to Duke University’s Divinity School to earn a specialized Master’s Degree, ThM, in Pastoral Care, where he focused his studies on challenges facing Active Duty personnel, Veterans and their families. His specific areas of interest include care for persons with Complex Trauma, strategies for healing from PTSD, Moral Injury, & mild TBI. A key personal mission of his is to leverage the strengths of faith-based Veteran Service Organizations as strategic partners to chaplains, the VA, and the DoD in their ongoing resiliency & suicide prevention initiatives. He is married to his Chilean sweetheart, Damaris. They have two young children, who are the delight of their hearts.