The Work You Can Do: Lessons from Physical Therapy

This post originally appeared on The Saint Constantine School blog on October 3, 2022

One year and ten months ago, I woke up unable to move my right arm without excruciating pain. I went to Urgent Care and was told that I must have somehow dislocated my shoulder in my sleep; a visit to an orthopedic specialist contradicted this by saying that the issue was likely neurological, rather than structural. After several rounds of MRI’s and nerve response tests, I was told to “wait and see.”

The fact that I am still in weekly physical therapy gives you some idea of how that waiting and seeing is going. But rather than recount the whole story, I would like to focus on a phrase used by my physical therapist last month, which has been pinging around in my brain ever since:

“Do the work you can do today.”

This can mean several things, depending on your understanding of certain words like “work” and “can do.” The phrase itself may also feel familiar if you come from an Anglican tradition, which I do. But let’s get to that last.

Last week, my Upper School Theater Ensemble had a discussion about the word “work.” This is a word I use frequently in our year-round acting class, but it had recently occurred to me that my students and I had very different understandings of what it means. For most of them, work generally brings to mind the things they feel obligated to do. “I have to get this work [or homework] done.” “I have to go to work.” 

This makes sense. Even if you happen to like your job, or enjoy your academic pursuits, the word work probably feels unpleasant in most cases. It’s a requirement that is placed on you; something to check off of a list, before you can do the next thing.

That’s how I felt about the word, until I began taking theater classes in high school and college. The theater professionals I read and studied under changed my perception. In their usage, work doesn’t mean an unpleasant or mandatory task – it simply means the thing that you are working on. The thing you’re practicing, exploring, actively thinking about. In this context, work isn’t an obligation like showing up to a meeting on time. It’s an empty canvas. An opportunity to see what’s in you, right now, to do. Maybe that thing is trying an acting exercise or monologue that feels risky. Maybe that thing is accepting that, instead, you should lie down and focus on your breathing. Both of these, if done with care, are considered work. 

This brings us to the next part of my PT’s comment: “the work you can do.” 

In my second or third week of physical therapy, I watched an elderly man lift a broomstick pole over his head. That was it: the whole exercise. He was sitting on a bench across the gym from where I sat, doing my own equally ridiculous-feeling exercises (rolling a yoga ball three inches forward and three inches back across a countertop). As I watched, the man lifted the pole, straight-armed, from his lap to the air above his head. His movement was slow, concentrated. The pain I was experiencing in my own shoulder gave me a clear view of the fact: this was hard. 

When his arms reached full extension above his head, the man looked so pained and proud that I nearly cried. My emotion came, partly, from the fact that I couldn’t have done this motion at the time, and I was frustrated and probably envious. (Imagine being envious of an old man lifting a broomstick over his head. It’s a real thing.) But mostly, I was moved by his tenacity. Sure, most people can lift a broomstick any number of ways – but for this man, this day, it was like winning a marathon. It was the hardest thing he could do right then, and he did it. 

I think of him a lot: When I’m at the gym, actively gauging how far I can push myself in the moment. When I’m at home, and I make a reach that causes a surprising pain (somehow the pain can still surprise me, nearly two years in). When I make a reach that doesn’t cause pain (equally surprising). When I face the un-checked boxes on my To Do list at the end of a busy day. When I consider tomorrow’s calendar, and whether or not it is realistic to expect that it will all get done. When I consider whether or not I can join my church’s music team this Sunday, or if that is one commitment too many for this week. When I discuss the word “work” with my students.

It turns out that work, in its theatrical context, applies to work in other areas. Most endeavors we undertake are, in some way, a thing we are practicing. A thing we are exploring. A thing we are actively considering how to do well, or better, or at least better than we did it yesterday. 

That’s part of the key to doing “the work you can do today”: viewing it as a practice, something to be actively learned and honed. Treating work in this way requires that you take an honest, hard look at what is possible, not at what is comfortable. It calls for an ability to balance tenacity with circumstantial reality, and that is a tough skill to learn. Some days, you can lift the proverbial broomstick; some days, it is unwise to try. My PT and I have developed a shorthand for this when I’m in the gym: there’s “okay pain” and there’s “bad pain.” Okay Pain is something that hurts because the thing I am doing is hard, but it is possible to work through. It’s worth it, in other words, because it will help me to handle this thing better the next time it comes up. Bad Pain is something that needs to stop, because if I keep going, the resulting injury will set me back a few weeks. It is not worth it.

How do you identify Bad Pain? How do you steer clear of it, without falling into the trap of allowing yourself to stay where it is safe and comfortable forever? When is it good to push yourself, and when is it good to rest?

These are hard questions, and answering them will obviously depend on what type of challenge you are facing. After almost two years of meticulously listening to my body and trying to decipher which pain is which, I can only tell the difference between Okay Pain and Bad Pain, in a physical sense, about 90% of the time. It is even harder to differentiate the two in other areas of life that involve practice: professional endeavors, academic efforts, familial needs, social commitments, personal boundaries, and the like. “How much is possible for me, today?”

To make these decisions, I need tenacity and realism to stand on equal footing. It’s a hard balance.

It is here that I would like to bring in the post-communion prayer that is used in the Anglican church. Every Sunday, after receiving the Eucharist and before receiving a final blessing from my priest, I pray these words aloud with the others present:

“And now, Father, send us out into the world to do the work you have given us to do: to love and to serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord. To him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit be honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.”

The work God has given us to do. 

Overall, of course, the prayer identifies that work as loving and serving God (and through Him, others). But that tiny part of the prayer catches my attention every time: “The work you have given us to do.” It’s similar to what my PT said – “Do the work you can do today” – but there’s an integral difference. In the prayer, the work isn’t something I generate on my own. It’s an opportunity that is given to me.

I said earlier that viewing work as a practice – something to be learned and honed – is part of the key to doing “the work you can do today.” The other part, I’m learning to believe, is a willingness to linger in the space of active consideration. In other words, to wait. I don’t mean the type of “waiting and seeing” that my orthopedic told me to do (that is, passively hoping that the problem resolves on its own). I mean an active waiting; a willingness to delay, not out of fear or laziness, but out of a desire to invite holy discernment into the moment. 

When the conflict between the need to keep going and the need to rest cries out for an immediate resolution, or when the desire to push yourself butts heads with the reality that maybe today you shouldn’t, pause. Consider. Invite the Spirit to fill the silence, either with an answer or with a better question. Avoid the temptation to rush through moments of indecision or doubt; those, too, are a thing to be practiced. 

This is the type of work I invite my students into: honestly challenging and honestly grace-filled. It’s harder to view it as the work I am invited into, but it must be equally true that challenges and grace are offered to teachers, too. God has given work to all of His children – adolescent and adult. 

What is the work that’s in you to do today?