My husband works in the purchasing department of a big company. He buys screws and other metal fasteners in large quantities from manufacturers abroad, and then another department within his company sells them to businesses elsewhere. Essentially, they’re a giant middle-man. Thrilling, right?

My husband is also incredibly bright, well educated and interesting, so there’s something incongruous about his work life and his personal life. And yet, he seems completely unfazed, happy enough to just work his 8-5, and every so often consider moving to a company with better benefits. This drives me crazy. I don’t understand how a person as fun and vivacious as he is can be happy working in a field he has no real interest in. I used to ask him all the time if there was a career he’s always wanted to try, no matter how unlikely, and his answer was always, “Not really.” It didn’t make a bit of sense to me.

When we were first dating, we had this conversation about once a week. I was sure he just needed a push in the right direction, and he would find That Thing that called to him, That Thing that tugged at him, that validated and fulfilled him, just like I had. But week after week, the answer was the same.

And then one day, I broke. “If you don’t have any desire to do anything bigger, to be anything better, then I don’t get you and you couldn’t possibly get me!” And he said this:

“You know, maybe I like to be a cog in the machine. Maybe I like the idea that I am a small part of something really big, and what that big thing is doesn’t matter because it is way less impressive than the fact that it exists in the first place. And maybe there’s not a job in the world that could give me what I really want, because I don’t want a job. What I want is to be a good guy who loves his family, who is a great friend and does things for people, a guy who travels and learns new things, and who really enjoys his life. What exactly do you find so offensive about that?”

After a moment of stunned silence, I started crying hysterically. I was totally overwhelmed by his honesty, and blindsided by the admiration, embarrassment and gratitude he made me feel. How did I not notice that there was all of this underneath his answer every week?

Of course, looking back on this experience through my Black Box glasses, I know that I just wasn’t seeing him, or the deepest truth of his behavior, but rather projecting my own feelings onto him. Thinking about it reminds me of one of Audrey’s Inside the Box entries, “Stay in Your Lane.” I loved it the first time I read it because, like most people, I am constantly comparing my success to the successes of my friends and peers–both as an actor and as a regular old human. But what I hadn’t considered until now was that as much as Audrey meant I should stay in my lane, she also meant that I should stay the fuck out of other people’s lanes, too. Demanding that my husband find some abstract idea of a “dream,” or “passion,” to mollify me is the same mechanism that makes me try to control my partners in repetition. It’s the same thing that makes me correct people and direct them and say, “You’re not doing it right.”

So this is what I know now, both in my work and in my life: My way is not everyone’s way. And, much to my chagrin, it may not even be the “best” way. It is one of the hardest and most rewarding lessons I have learned at Black Box, and the one that I continually find myself fighting against; but I know that accepting this reality is the only way that I can let myself see people’s deepest truths and, more terrifyingly, let mine be seen. Giving up control is scary. Admitting I’m wrong is scarier. But when I really listen and really respond, rather than direct and judge and muscle, I’m almost always surprised by what I find.