Albert O. Hirschman described three options for dealing with challenges as a member of a group in his book, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. The eponymous choices leave the frustrated member of a country, company, or family to bail out, speak out, or patriotically suck it up. These are good options in a lot of situations, and it would be valuable and freeing to many people if they could more easily do one of these things under difficult circumstances (as Hirschman suggests). But these options are also limiting.
Each choice implies that a given group’s powers & structures have a quality separable from and acting upon the individual member. The disempowered member leaves when they lose faith in the group’s ability to transform, protests and suggests when they believe the group can change, and stoically remains when the static group carries sufficient narrative significance. None of these acts suggest a relevant locus of active control over the relationship held by the group member, other than dropping their frustration into the suggestion box. What if, as a fourth alternative, the individual could transform their relationship with the group?
Let me put the footnote at the forefront: I am not suggesting that one must work harder, smile bigger through scut work, or be a better you. That’s for Instagram and corporate placards. Voice and exit are crucial options when situations are untenable, and sometimes loyalty is either unavoidable or attractive.
In order get at this fourth option, consider your relationship with gravity. From the time you are born, gravity is a constant. Gravity is a citizenship you cannot renounce, at least not for very long at this point in history. Your muscles develop in response to gravity, you learn to walk and run and ride a bike, and you find the sleeping position that works for you (dedicated side sleeper with a knee pillow, here). You don’t think about exiting gravity, giving it a piece of your mind, or grudgingly granting it your loyalty. You give gravity your trust and you dance with it, however gracefully or assisted.
Now consider your relationship with a country, a company, a family. What if you set aside exit, loyalty, and voice (knowing that you can always return for them) and find creative ways to dance with these relationship partners. In the case of gravity, one walks/runs/bikes every day, learns to dance the bachata, practices initiating flight with a frisbee. With these other partners, one might learn to cook in tune with a family member’s quirky food preferences, give deep attention to a widely hated task at work, or get to know a neighbor well enough to do a thoughtful favor.
In engaging with your world this way, it is helpful to temporarily imagine that a given relationship is as certain to remain in your life as gravity. This prevents you from saying, “what’s the point, I will just move on from or try to transform this thing”. And as with gravity, improvement is possible without gravity’s permission. Gravity is always participating. The change can happen inside you and be reflected in the relationship. The do-nothing loyalist should not hide from what could grow.
Creativity, attention, and time are the key ingredients for this fourth way. There is a story in the ancient Chinese text The Zhuangzi that illustrates how one’s close awareness and patient practice can bring one into a dancing, trusting relationship:
Butcher Ding carved an ox for Lord Wen Hui; his point of contact, the way he inclined his torso, his foot position, the angle of his knee … gliding, flowing! The knife sang “whuaa” with nothing out of tune. It was as if he were dancing the Faun Ballet or directing an opera.
Lord Wen Hui exclaimed “Ole! Splendidly done! Can talent extend even to this?.
Butcher Ding gestured with his knife, explaining,
“What your servant pursues is dào; which is what skill aims at. When I began to carve oxen, what I saw was nothing but the oxen. After three years, I had ceased seeing them as wholes, and now my sapience mingles so that I don’t see with my eyes, Sensory know-how ends and my sapient desires take over my performance. I rely on natural guiding structures, separate out the great chunks and steer through empty gaps depending on the anatomy. I evade places where cords and filaments intertwine, much less the large bones.
A good cook gets a new knife every year; he chops! Mediocre cooks change knives monthly; they hack. My knife now has 19 years on it; it’s carved several thousand oxen and the edge is as if I had just taken it from the sharpener.
Those joints have gaps, and the knife’s edge no thickness, to put something infinitesimally thin in an empty space?! Effortless! It even allows the edge wander in with ample room to play. That is why, with 19 years on it, this knife’s edge is grindstone fresh.”
Cook Ding’s long years of butchering have lead him to an intuitive understanding with oxen and with his knife; his task is as innate as your relationship with earth’s gravity.
Under the right circumstances, Hirschman’s options are good ones. Leave when a thing must be left. Give feedback and protest. Be loyal. And also consider trying to develop a fourth option, to enhance your awareness, build your intuition, and dance to your dance partner’s steps.