Whenever we start or end a job, relationship, or residence we are faced with disorienting dilemmas. To adapt, we use a process called “transformative learning.” First, we examine our new situation and make plans. Then, we try out new approaches and practice the ones that work. Eventually, we use our new skills.
Young people are faced with so many dilemmas that few ask themselves if there is any way to make transformative learning easier. It takes wisdom to ask that question and creativity to answer it. Recently, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Fuquay-Varina’s wise and creative Town Board Commissioner, William Harris.
Our meeting began downtown at The Mill. Commissioner Harris introduced himself by telling me that he is a writer, too. That created a flashbulb memory by occurring right before the mail would deliver my new license plate, “WRITER2”, ensuring that I would not forget the meeting. We both have had diverse careers and now we are both “writers, too.”
The meeting ended with an even greater surprise. Commissioner Harris mentioned three questions from his daily journal. Each day, those three are included in his responses to some or all of 18 transformative questions. Even the number is significant to those familiar with Judaism. We count with letters and the letters for 18 also spell our word for “life.” Our tradition even contains a two-millennia old daily prayer of blessings, called “18.” So, after the interview, I sat down with our 18 blessings, turned them into questions, and matched them up in italics after Bill’s. Then, I reorganized Bill’s responses to my interview questions as illustrations. The resulting trio of Commissioner Harris questions, Judaic questions, and Interview Illustrations presents a fascinating lesson in how to incorporate wisdom and understanding into daily life. Asterisks indicate Bill’s three favorite questions—ones he is sure to answer even in a hurried day.
*1. What and whom am I grateful for today? How can I express gratitude for our lives, souls, and blessings today and how can I promote peace, goodness, kindness and compassion?
In our interview, Mr. Harris spontaneously offered “I truly am grateful for every kind word, every support, everybody who has worked with me over the last 32 years.”
2. What am I excited about and look forward to doing today? What will further our answers to the other questions below?
Bill has taught in many settings, in Sunday school, at Lincoln Heights Elementary School, and as a drug education school instructor. I mentioned the discovery of how grading on the curve penalizes kids who start a little behind others. Year-after-year their grades get lower. But grading developmentally shows kids and their parents how they progressed. To grade developmentally, teachers need to remember where each child has been and imagine where she or he needs to go. That is harder than just comparing one to others. But the extra effort is worth it. Bill responded, with quick insight, about hearing a speaker tell how self-esteem becomes progressively lower over years in school as children are constantly being compared to their peers.
3. What is my purpose and do my plans for today connect me to it? How can I help my community to draw on its traditional wisdom?
Commissioner Harris’s campaign motto says it all: “Creating a quality city with a small-town feel.”
4. How can I move the dial toward my goals today? What community leaders need support today?
Bill told of a disorienting dilemma. “The first year I was on the Board, I made a motion and got no seconds. I went home that night and thought ‘I’m part of a team. I should at least have a second to get an idea discussed.’ Today this dilemma is resolved by the Mayor polling each of us, asking ‘What do you think?’”
5. To whom can I reach out and serve or thank today? Who needs healing today?
“From a public policy perspective, the treatment program I direct concentrates on those addicted to serious drugs with a focus on prevention and education. I expanded the department from 11 to 22 programs, so that it is now state-wide and linked to the probation and parole systems.
Any offender coming in contact with the court system has an opportunity to receive treatment instead of incarceration. It gives the court an alternative. It is easier and more cost effective to provide treatment than incarceration.
The program also helps to avoid placing a first-time offender with hard-core felons. It started back in the early 1970s with opioid addiction, based on the streets in urban communities. Alternatives needed to be in place. I remember that back then most addicts were buying from drug dealers. Now it’s more affluent people getting prescriptions. That era was post-Viet Nam. A lot of the vets came back with addiction problems that were not addressed. There were not enough treatment options available then.”
He explained how the program helps. “If a person has found their bottom and they stay connected to their support programs, they can recover. They have to stay connected to positive treatment and positive people. You have to change your playground and your playmates. It happens to everybody.”
6. Are my goals aligned with my purpose? What needs to happen for my community to prosper?
“When we looked at the Hilltop-Needmore area, when development pressures came, I voted against it. Those issues are important to me. We have got to address how we can maintain and acknowledge the rural character of the community.”
*7. How can I increase the quality of my service today? What do I need to remember about human nature today?
This is the second of Bill’s favorite questions. “If I feel really strong on an issue,” he explained, “I will vote my conscience. The best example I can think of is my concern that as we transition and grow into a more suburban area, we might be losing farmland that is part of our history. Some of the development in certain areas is a threat to that. We’ve transitioned from a tobacco town to a suburban city.”
8. How can I become more valuable today? What do we need to build to preserve our heritage?
Several of Bill’s answers would fit here, but it was helpful to hear that he believes, “The history park makes Fuquay-Varina unique.” Town pride begins with knowledge of its history.
*9. How can I make a difference today? What calls for wisdom and understanding today?
This is the third and final of Bill’s favorite questions. He’ll answer at least 10 a day, but he carries his favorite questions with him all day long. I chose an illustrative thought that I believe he also carries with him all day long.
“In order to get things done you need to be able to work together. I try to be a stabilizing factor on the Board. We all have diverse perspectives and skills. I’ve learned to listen for commonalities. I’ve found that in any discussion, there will be a common theme—people caring about the community and moving things forward.”
10. What must I learn today? What knowledge of the universe will I need today?
He has long had a commitment to learning. “I started graduate work at NC State in public administration earlier and got my MA in 1995, the hard way [working full-time]. I was working with state government in Health and Human Services as director of the alternative sentencing program for drug abusers, TASC for Treatment Alternatives for Street Crimes. 1990-95.”
11. What skills must I upgrade today? How can I best use our environment today?
He focuses especially on getting enough information and having an opportunity to ask questions.
12. What beliefs or habits must I develop? What righteous people need support today?
I asked Commissioner Harris about the planned mixed-use development on the corner of Academy and Main. He answered, “It’s good to have things that people can appreciate. We have to make ourselves available to the under-36 population, the town’s median age. We need to have the amenities of the small town.”
13. What beliefs or habits must I release today? What destructive practices of myself or others need resistance today?
“I left parole because it was getting too dangerous. All I had to protect myself was my handcuffs. I frisked a man and missed his gun. I’m lucky to be here. I went back to the cell block and told him, ‘You could have killed me.’ He replied, ‘I thought about it.’ I answered, ‘This may sound like a crazy question. Why didn’t you?’ He answered, ‘You have always been nice to me.’ I learned that lesson: treat people nicely, because you don’t know when it’s going to come back around to you.’”
14. Who can help me do this? Where can we find leaders to help us preserve our legacy?
“We don’t always agree. A lot of issues are ironed out in the retreat. We discuss town issues, the five-year plan, facilities, services, future growth issues, attracting businesses, citizen engagement, needs, and future plans. By the time we get to the Board, our concerns have been addressed. The Board meeting is the opportunity to have public input.”
15. What are the qualities of the “best person” I see myself as capable of being? What personal insights should I seek today?
“The key to relationships is to understand that everybody has value and worth. Everybody needs to be heard. Diversity is being at the table. Inclusion is having a voice at the table. Belonging is having that voice heard.
Working in the criminal justice system, everybody has a story. They are the salt of the earth. I like people who are doing things on a day-to-day basis that are not in the spotlight.”
16. What can I do to activate these qualities? How can we support our ancient lands today?
I asked Commissioner Harris what he wanted to say to everybody in Fuquay-Varina? His answer was “Let’s work together to create a quality city with a small-time feel.” Then, after a moment’s reflection, he repeated his answer to question 1,
“I truly am grateful for every kind word, every support, everybody who has worked with me over the last 32 years.”
17. What physical actions can I take in order to become the person I envision today? What rituals will help preserve our heritage?
“One of my former teachers asked if I would serve on the Town Board. [His name was Leroy Burton, now deceased. He taught school here in Fuquay-Varina for several years.] I had been President of the Lincoln Heights PTA, a Mason, and taught a Sunday school class. I asked him about the time commitment and was told it’s only two meetings a month, just completing Mr. Freeman’s term. I got involved and found that I had the opportunity to have more of an impact. Once I became aware of the Town Board’s service, it broadened my perspective.” This began 36 years of service to Fuquay-Varina.
18. Is there something I am doing that may be in the way and preventing me from being the person I know I can be? What do I need to seek forgiveness for today?
There was not an answer to this question in the interview, because I resist negative questions. But we could turn the question upside down and ask, “Is there something furthering us along the road of becoming the persons we know we can be?”
I got an answer to that question after the interview, when I wrote to ask whether the two sets of questions worked together. His answer was, “It was amazing the similarities in the questions in the table you sent, and the thinking process they prompted. Your questions require soul searching and defining purpose or mission each day and I hope my 18 questions have a similar effect.”
The Lesson of Commissioner Harris’s Story
The lesson of this story is to avoid waiting for your next disorienting dilemma. Instead, seek the wisdom and understanding to make transformative learning easier by taking time each day to soul-search and reflect on your purpose. These 18 transformative questions can help.
