deep cover

Tonight as I rode off into the moonset on my windhorse, I began thinking about people whose jobs are on mission. Remember all the old undercover cop shows a la Miami Vice and 21 Jumpstreet? I know, I'm showing my age. There is always a story line or premise that their assignments are so dangerous and classified that the undercover officer has to infiltrate the target and cut off all relationships and contact with the outside. No communications even with their bosses and families. They call it "deep cover". Of course, the most suspenseful story lines always dealt with the officers' new personas beginning to confuse their real identity even to themselves. They began to loose sight of whom they really were, and as a result, why they were there. Sometimes their mission was so strong, that they began to operate under a no rules mentality so as to get the job done regardless of the cost. Sometimes they began to operate with no rules because they actually became the bad guys they had originally set out to catch. These officers would always get so entrenched in their assignments that there was no way to maintain a relationship or even get support from the ones who had sent them.
I worry greatly about those of us who face this danger. Folks that define our assignment in such a way that consumes us and doing the job becomes more important than the outcome or reason we are doing the job. It is common to get so deep in the assignment as to cut off all contact with even the one who sent us. The assignment becomes procedural. We continue to do the work of the company but really no longer work for the company and therefore receive no feedback, support or encouragement even though it is there for us. We become stagnant and eventually ineffective and weak without even realizing it.