PLAN VS. HOPE

June 29th, 2018

This episode references Episode 24: Hope Grows Foolish with No Doing.  If you’d like to fully understand the reference, please check out that episode first.

Those who ‘have a plan’ may project more authority, appearing to have more determination.  Their certainty is intoxicating.  These people have no need to predict the future, they make the future.  In this sense, ‘the plan’ is very close to an expectation.  And expecting the future to be a certain way is far different than making the future. The hubris surrounding such language is apt to be it’s own demise.

Those who HOPE for certain things to work out, may appear weaker.  As though they have less will, determination and appear to regard themselves as more victim of the whims of fate.  They are more ‘realistic’, more ‘down to earth’.  Maybe even jaded with a shade of defeat.  Not surprised when things don’t go their way.  Fuel for an undercurrent of cynicism? Perhaps.  The hopeful person can certainly be in one breath both the positive and waiting for life to prove them wrong yet once again.  Proving their secret cynicism is justified…

Where is the middle ground between these two less-than-ideal perspectives?

The first tends to ignore the concept of disappointment all together – very dangerous.   The second is bracing for impact, and in so doing, almost expects the disappointment.  This can easily be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  You get what you concentrate on. 

This is not to say that it's bad to have a plan and hope for the best, but there is a flaw in both strategies. It becomes obvious by their relationship to disappointment.  They are both coping mechanism for a fear of disappointment.  The first ignores it.  The second is already partly convinced it’s going to happen. 

The middle ground is not another coping mechanism.

The better path is to chop at the root of the problem instead of hacking at the leaves.

The opposite of fear is curiosity.

The space between?

Indifference.

Given any task or goal, you’re perspective on it’s outcome falls somewhere on that spectrum: fear – indifference – curiosity.

Much fear is paraded around as positive action and certainty about the future.

Curiosity is simply a strong desire to know and learn. 

This has nothing to do with hoping or expecting the future to be a certain way. 

Might it be a better way to look at the things we undertake?

NO RECIPE

June 28th, 2018

Recipe books are like schools.  They show you a bunch of orders, give you a bunch of hoops to jump through, but rarely does a school teach you how to live or a recipe book how to cook.

Recipes, or instructions of any kind do two things: they give off the impression that what you are doing is already known and therefore there is no way to improve upon it. Therefore no need to improv–ise what you are doing.  And two: they set up an expectation.  If only you follow these rules, you will have exhibit A: beautiful result.

Both of these are traps.   The first robs you of thoughtfulness.  Doing something for the first time, on the fly, requires thinking.  A recipe requires an automaton.  The second sets up an expectation that may result in disastrous disappointment when the oh-so-perfect rules do not produce the beautiful result.  Any number of reasons could be the culprit.  Inevitable flaws in the writing of the recipe.  Perhaps something was vague, perhaps something was assumed and not clearly spelled out.  Perhaps there’s a million things wrong with the recipe.  Maybe someone rushed it, just to get something to print and on the page. . .

The opposite of these two things can be a powerful tool while learning:  Ignorance and lack of expectation. 

The second – expectation, or lack thereof- ensures that you will not be disappointed.  You are starting with a clean slate, and just about anything is better than a blank slate. 

The first allows you the chance to make quantum leaps in learning.  You are not stuck to an ordered list that only allows you to fit inside one step at a time.  Unfettered thinking bounces around all over the place, and the learning, probing, wondering, curious brain makes connections everywhere and anywhere it needs to, as it tries to figure something out.

Is this not at the heart of what makes kids cute while they learn at quantum speeds compared to most adults?  They fumble with ignorance, without the least amount of expectation-induced hesitation.  They make loads of mistakes and fall, sure.   But then it clicks and we are amazed that they figured something out so fast.

So when it comes to anything where totally failing won't result in real harm..

Go ahead.  Throw the recipe away.  You might learn something.

It’ll be cute.

PLOW AHEAD

June 27th, 2018

This episode references Episode 23 entitled PAUSE and Episode 34 entitled WIGGLE.  If you’d like to fully understand these references, please check out those episodes first.

When the going get’s tough, the tough get going.  Right?

Do we plow through obstacles?  If so, what is being done to the obstacle?  Is it being destroyed?  Tossed to the side?

This is the cultural essence of the phrase, to ‘plow ahead’.  Like some sort of juggernaut.  Like a train headed towards a fiat stalled on the tracks.  But this phrase deserves a little more thoughtful consideration.

What is a plow? 

Is it pushed or pulled through the ground in order to destroy the ground?  As though the ground were some sort of pesky obstacle?  No.  The plow reshapes the ground.  The plow alters the ground so that it is more conducive to receiving seeds.  The plow aides a natural process.  When most seeds that fall on the ground may dry out or burn after germinating before the tiny root can WIGGLE down for a hold, the plow opens up the playing field for the individual seed.  Literally.

So what does it mean to ‘plow ahead’? . . . when the going gets tough?

Are we to confront obstacles like enemies, subdue and destroy them, remove them from our path and head on straight towards our goals?  Or is there a subtler suggestion in this cultural adage?

Might we alter an obstacle to aide us on our way to a goal?

A wall in your way is a pain until you see the value of such a new perspective when you’ve climbed to the top of it and looked around.

To plow ahead doesn’t mean to grit your teeth, close your eyes and charge forward.  A sharp plow is like sharp insight, and plowing ahead means meeting your obstacle with thoughtfulness, concentration and a willingness to see how such a pesky-seeming-object might benefit you.

Imagine some post-apocalyptic weary traveler, ignorant of the ways of fallen civilization, coming across a functioning car in their path while running from some dangerous enemy.  The desperate traveler, in ignorance, will probably see this car as an obstacle, impeding the path. 

If only this traveler knew how much faster they could ‘run’ behind the wheel.

PAUSE the next time you feel thwarted, pushed back and pushed down. 

You might be looking at the golden key to a better future.

If only you sharpen your plow and look at your situation a little differently.

PERSEVERE VS. PIVOT

June 26th, 2018

This episode references Episode 57: Compass.  If you’d like to fully understand the reference, then please check out that episode first.

Those who persevere and eventually succeed are lauded – for good reason. But what about the person who pivots? Are they ‘giving up’ in a sense?

What defines perseverance?

The willingness to keep going even in the face of setbacks and failures.

What defines a ‘pivot’?

Here’s a possible definition.

The willingness to try something new given the information received from setbacks and failures.

What exactly does that sneaky pair of verbs really mean in the first definition: 'keep going'

What does the persevering individual actually do when faced with setbacks and failures? How do you 'keep going' after a setback or failure while ‘persevering’?

Rarely is the answer to do the same exact thing that lead to the setback or resulted in failure.  Something needs to be changed. This is the hard work. It requires a teamwork of things: awareness, calmness, optimism, thoughtfulness, curiosity and a willingness to try something new. Maybe only slightly different from the last strategy. Maybe something vastly different.

A pivot is required.

The persevering individual who succeeds is mythologized like a steam engine. They had the drive.  Oh, and just happened to find the right pair of train-tracks. Clapped down on those tracks and then it was full-steam ahead to the horizon and beyond. But this is not the case. There are no such fast-tracks.

Better to think of an explorer with a COMPASS. The explorer doesn’t stare straight at the compass the whole time, marching off in the direction it points until the destination is reached. like that train… That would get you killed. You’d end up walking off a cliff, or into a bear den, or a drug den, or into a river home to piranhas, or a casino full of smiling sharks.

Anyone who doesn’t have their face glued to a compass would start to feel their commonsense tingling before making any of those mistakes.

And the more blind drive an individual has, the more spectacular the collision when that locomotive can’t pivot to dodge the building-sized rock that happened to fall on the tracks.

The good explorer is constantly referencing a compass.

But a good explorer spends the majority of their time looking at the terrain.

If the goal is north, it could be better served to go east for a little while, if only to go around a mountain instead of making the treacherous climb up into the clouds. A pivot - to go around an unforeseen obstacle might actually be faster and safer than trying to gobble up the obstacle with loads of work and frustration.

Are you climbing unnecessary mountains?

Don’t just head back down the way you came. Build a toboggan, round the mountain at the height you find yourself and slide down the other side. Or slide east - at the very least.

(A bad habit provides an extremely reliable framework for a new potentially good habit to expropriate. Don't let all that hard work go to waste.)

The results of perseverance are wicked sexy, that’s why perseverance gets all the fanfare. It’s the movie montage that delivers our perfectly-packaged, well-seasoned hero who will save the day in tight clothing.

The pivot is not sexy. It has no fanfare, and is usually marked by some failure, obstacle, some setback. What surrounds the pivot is confusion and uncertainty. The least sexy things for many humans. But it’s like a thousand-dollar check gift-wrapped in the cardboard tube of a spent toilet paper roll. It’s the opportunity to keep going, if only you consider switching things up slightly. By slowing down. Considering calmly. Curiously and creatively: what can be done now?

Perseverance means pivoting as often and as drastically as you need to in order to achieve a long term goal.

Perseverance is made of pivots.

P.S. If your COMPASS is broken, lost, or you feel like you never got one: Climbing a mountain is a particularly good way to survey the scene and get a feel for where you are. That means: learn something – something big, different and hard. Remember though. The climb to the top is not straight up. Best to switchback your way up the mountain. That means, lots of pivots.

WEAKEST LINK

June 25th, 2018

A chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link.

One would be hard pressed to find a concept that has been more over-used in recent years.

Why is there no talk of chainmail?

No person is a single link.  A more apt analogy for our psychology is chainmail.  We may not have strong links in every area.  Hell there may even be missing links and holes.  But this does not mean we snap and fail completely like a chain holding some weight, like a person bearing a single gargantuan stress. 

Life is a bit more multi-disciplinary than such images suggest.

Best to think of a net, one that can be used very effectively even if it’s not in perfect shape.  One that can be repaired, a net that needs maintenance and elbow-grease-love.

Just as a broken automatic sliding window doesn’t rule out the usefulness of a car, the chain image is of little use except to pigeonhole people and their efforts, to falsely delineate more clearly a sense of good and bad, failed and reliable.  Our insufferable penchant for such dichotomies is bad in that it gives us an inaccurate way of interpreting events, people and ideas, and blinds us from potential missed opportunities.  We see only a broken link when potentially we could see a valuable resource put to work in a different capacity.

Another cultural proverb illuminates this problem:  don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. 

Or as Voltaire once put it: don’t let the best be the enemy of the good.

Yes there are weak links in all of us.

And as long as we don’t neglect them for too long and let them accumulate. . .

None of them are deal breakers.