Doing chairs meant arranging 250 chairs in an exact, prescribed order.
So exact must the alignment into rows and sections be that the first time
around we redid it four times until we got it right. "Right" meant that
a piece of string pulled taut from one end of a row to the other never
curved.
My involvement with chairs over the two weekends was relentless. I aligned
them, rearranged them, took them away, brought them back. A fellow volunteer
dubbed the total experience "the chair training." Around the third or fourth
time I did chairs, I had a realization.
Contemporary man, with all his senses intact, often acts as though he
were deaf, dumb, and blind. Because there are too many messages being
beamed at him -- and too many of them are painful -- he has chosen to
be half alive instead of fully alive. He dreams and worries about the
future. He frets about or retreats to the past. He rarely gives his
total self to the here and now of the present.
For me, the intense focus on the now in my volunteer experience was at
first unpleasant, unfulfilling, unproductive, un-just-about-everything.
When I committed myself to it, it was satisfying. Doing chairs, I really
got that the only thing that matters is the moment. You cannot be involved
only in good moments and not be involved in those moments you don't like.
Feeling alive is experiencing every moment -- pleasant and unpleasant
I was reminded of a classic Zen aphorism. If what one does before the Tao
("the Way") is to chop wood and drink water, then what does one do after
the Tao? The answer: chop wood and drink water.
It was around this time that I found myself really enjoying my work.
I eagerly accepted my reassignment from chairs to bathrooms. What truths
could I discover, I wondered, in a search for the shortest route from the
training room to the toilets?
This enthusiasm, however, waxed and waned. There were times when I felt
a grimness about it all. Except when we were instructed to smile in
the role of "greeter," we were to remain poker-faced. When I remarked
on this to my supervisor, he said, simply, "The purpose of assisting is
to assist. Do what you're doing now. Do your
humor
at humor time."
About midway through the first weekend, I became concerned that I might
never get into the room, which had been my primary goal in volunteering.
I complained to the person to whom I was responsible. He eye-balled me
for a moment and then said, kindly, "And you may
never
get in
the room."
Because I generally make my needs known "up-front," I'm accustomed to
getting my way in most things. I also don't accept "no" easily. Somehow,
this time was different. I accepted what he said. No rebellion, no demands,
no complaints. Instead, I took responsibility for my intention to be in
the training room. And, of course, it happened.
A few weeks later, when I visited
est
headquarters in San Francisco,
I spoke with volunteers who had worked directly with or around Werner.
I wondered how much more or less rigorous his expectations were in
comparison to those of my own supervisors.
A young woman who had volunteered to clean the San Francisco town
house where Werner has his office told me that she had been instructed
in detail about how to do the job. "I had to clean under each object,
such as those on a coffee table, and then replace it precisely where
I found it, not a half-inch away." (All housekeeping functions are now
performed by paid personnel.)
The person assigned to clean toilets at headquarters that day reported
that there was one, and only one,
est
way to do the job. He shared
that he had been astonished to discover how much thought and effort
could go into cleaning toilets the
est
way: i.e., completely.
And one of the
est
office staff confessed that Werner can become
very loud when a job isn't completed. "I quake, but I know he loves me.
Does that sound really crazy? That's the way it is and so you go about
your job the way Werner wants the job done."
Several
est
workers proudly told me that
est
graduates were
in great demand on the California job market. A number of businesses,
in fact, were reported to be hiring only
est
-ers.
Subsequently I met the manager of a charming restaurant on Fisherman's
Wharf who told me that most of his staff were
est
people and that,
whenever an old-timer left, he would be replaced by an
est
-er
regardless of whether or not he or she had ever done that kind of
work before.
His reason, this conscientious and able man told me, was that
est
grads "don't stand around waiting for someone else to do their work,
or to be told what needs to be done. They don't whine and complain that
anything is too much for them or that a particular job is beyond their
job description. They do their jobs well and cheerfully."
Incredible! It occurred to me that if Werner actualized his proposal
to train millions, it might have a dramatic effect on everyone's job
performance.
Being an
est
volunteer made me very conscious of what making and
breaking agreements in the
est
sense was all about. In a society
where "rules are made to be broken," it was refreshing -- if at times
disconcerting -- to experience
est
's insistence on fullfilling
agreements.
A case in point occurred on the first day of the training. A man I
estimated to be in his middle forties, successful, sure of himself,
had flown up from Florida the evening before to take the training.
He was obviously excited about this commitment and presented himself to us
with pleased expectation written on his face.
At the registration table he was asked if he had brought a letter from
his therapist giving permission for him to take the training. This was
a requirement because he had answered affirmatively to a question
on the application form that asked if he had ever been hospitalized
for psychiatric care or a mental disorder. Because he had forgotten or
thought it irrelevant, he hadn't gotten the letter. Although he had been
hospitalized twenty-five years previously, and despite his long and costly
trip, he was told that he would not be allowed to take the training.
He screamed and pounded on the table and threatened dire consequences and
pace the floor. But the decision, confirmed after a call to California,
remained no. I watched him leave, rejected and dejected, suitcase in
hand, and wondered if he'd be back. Would I? I asked myself. I wasn't
sure that I would have.
One of the most striking things about being an
est
volunteer was
the chance it gave me to observe at close hand, and to be a part of,
the
est
community.
I saw that Werner has created a situation where people clamor to volunteer.*
It saves the cost of thousands of salaries and it provides
est
with dedicated people to attend to the myriad details (chair arranging,
bathroom maps) that contribute to
est
's success. Werner told
me that what people really want to do with their lives is to make
a contribution to the well-being of others. He said that people who
experience themselves find that purpose within themselves.
* est says that 6,000 to 7,000 graduates work as volunteers In
the course of a year.
The basis of the volunteer program is that it is a real-life
after-training workshop in which you get to experience responsibility
along with other
est
graduates. A free postgraduate course, in
effect. Volunteers repeatedly told me that they felt they got more from
their work than
est
got from their services. It was certainly
true of my own experience. I later learned that it is a requirement of
the assistants program that people remain in it only as long as they
get at least as much value from assisting as they contribute.
The
est
volunteer experience is also a pleasurable and fulfilling
one for most. One can't be around
est
offices and events without
noticing that everyone seems intensely involved. The offices have a
softly humming and confident busyness.
Everyone -- and this includes old pros as well as first-timers --
seems to be "on purpose," which is an
est
term for getting the
job done. Although nothing is supposed to interfere with the task at
hand, Werner has told staff members, "This is not a war. In doing our
job in
est
, we are not to think in terms of allowable levels of
casualties. Each individual is to be respected and no individual may be
sacrificed for any reason." Quite impressive and quite different from
the offices I've worked in.
My feelings about this aspect of
est
, the sense of community
and eager commitment, is that it fulfills a deep need in contemporary
American society. Critics of
est
have compared it, disparagingly,
with old-time religion. If one defines religion as a belief system,
then
est
would not qualify as a religion. (When the question was
actually posed to a trainer during a seminar, in classic
est
-ian
fashion, the response was, "I got it. It's not and if that's what you
experience it's O.K.")
What
est
does have in common with traditional Western religon
is its sense of service, of mission, and of course its definition of
a way of being and experiencing. And, like many religions,
est
has its own language. Not only does this language provide a unique way
of communicating, it also immediately identifies whoever uses
est
phrases as an ex-asshole, a member of the club.
This experience of belonging -- in a special place, with a particular
group of people -- was once provided by one's church. Today an
est
graduate might put in long hours of painstaking work and have such an
experience -- a sense of belonging, of serving. I've seen a similar kind
of fervor among volunteer workers in a political campaign. The difference
between the
est
and the political volunteer experience is that
est
-ers experience satisfaction in their lives and activists can
merely
hope
that their efforts will change their lives.
An interesting aside is that for a while there was a rule against sex
between
est
staff members. To the relief of all who mentioned it
to me, that rule has been rescinded.
Working at
est
means instant friends, confidants, and people who
sincerely are interested in one another. Several times when I was at an
est
office someone would burst into tears and immediately find both
a sympathetic ear and assistance in
getting
whatever the tears
related to. The problems shared were intimate ones -- a bad trip with
parents, a lover, a boss. Nothing seemed too private, too embarrassing,
too crazy to hide. Time and time again I was struck by the contrast
be- tween an interchange among
est
grads and the comparative
superficiality of communication between friends and colleagues on the
outside. If the former sometimes made me uncomfortable, ultimately it
was far more satisfying than the latter.
What did I get from the intense experience of being an
est
volunteer?
The high point of the weekend came when the man in charge of logistics
said to me, after I had mapped the shortest and most efficient route to
the bathrooms, "Thank you, Adelaide. You have done an excellent job in
writing these instructions." Wow! I was high for hours. From which I got
that it's a lot more satisfying to be
on purpose
than scattered,
and
that I enjoy someone else's approval for "a job well done."
I also got that both my intention and my attention determined the quality
of my work.
As for my understanding of the
est
operation, I finally
got
why the
est
organization is so successful. The value of its
philosophy and techniques is only part of the picture. The rest comes
from the fact that people give their best efforts to
est
, that
out of the intense focus, discipline, and caring of staff and volunteers
has come an incredibly tight, efficient, and effective business.
Each
est
volunteer "gets off" on doing his job, be it toilet-cleaning
or supervising, when his work is completed. Multiply one worker's
experiences several thousand times and you get several thousand
super-efficient, happy, and devoted workers. Free! They not only care
about what they do, they bring loving concern to what they do. It works!
Richard M. Dawes, M.D.
Dr. Dawes is Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of
Psychiatry at Louisiana State University and is on the Board of
Directors of De Paul Psychiatric Hospital in New Orleans. He was a
general practitioner for twelve years before he returned to school to
become a psychiatrist He decided to take the est training after
reading Marcia Seligson's article on est, which first appeared
in New Times and was reprinted in Cosmopolitan. His former
wife, his present wife, and his two children have since taken
the training.
I'm enthusiastic about
est
because it works. I've seen it work
with myself, my patients, and my friends. I have broken through so
many barriers, for both myself and my patients, that I can only be high
about it. Until now I have always been a therapeutic nihilist, exploring
everything but never enthusiastic about anything.
In my own life, I have faced many things that have been uncomfortable.
During the Truth Process, I got in touch with material inaccessible to me
during my seven years of analysis, which is a reflection of how intense
and effective the
est
experience is. I picked depression as my
item and I got In touch with my body feelings of "coldness." I began to
shiver. The picture that came to mind was of me as a little boy of five
on a day when It had actually snowed in New Orleans. I had packed snow
into my pockets to bring home to my mother and then passed out "cold"
on the sidewalk. I experienced a tremendous fear of being alone, it was
exceedingly powerful. In all my years on the couch I had never gotten
In touch with that alone feeling. When that process was over I was so
relieved that I laughed uproariously, as did so many others.