Take hold of the chaos and open your hands to the maelstrom. Place a stake in that barren and wild place, and build a shelter in which others may find rest.
But do not hold too tightly to that endeavor, for one morning your path will lead on. A second time you must leave that comfort of familiarity.
So go. Plant a tree. Dig a well.
“It’s impossible to simply maintain“. That’s what a mentor veterinarian told me over lunch earlier this week, as we were discussing our role as consultant, and what that means to be a consultant for an owner, and how we need to communicate that role. We are more than just problem-solver, or answer-giver, and fixing a problem is not nearly as valuable to the owner as building a culture that prevents the problem, yet owners tend to value the former more than the latter.
In cases where we have leaned heavy in certain areas, we have consistently seen major improvements, but it always comes at a cost that is higher (mostly labor and effort cost). The answers are often found to be a drift away from what we once had already decided was important to do; things are now a little bit sloppier, we cut a few corners to save some time, we found an “easier” way to get the work done. I know it’s not fair to blame physics, but it sure seems like cultures, behaviors, and workmanship are ruled by entropy as much as chemical processes.
I think this is the natural way of things, and it’s why you always see the mud and dead grass on the inside corner of any right-angle in a concrete footpath. It’s why I just now noticed that I myself was slouching, and breathing poorly, even as I write this. Energy conservation – and I don’t even need to conserve physical energy as I have more than enough extra calories already stored in too many adipocytes.
Anway, going back to what the vet said during the lunch “it’s impossible to simply maintain“, he was indicating that the groups we seek to serve are not in closed systems. People come and go from those groups, external pressures and internal dynamics are always shifting, and all of that will have an effect on the system in question.
So how do we demonstrate this to owners?
It seems like, on many occasions, we have figured out how to get the desired results by being the force that brings energy into the system, but how do we go beyond supplying the energy to affect change? How do we begin to actually redesign systems? What if part of every project I do, every report I write, I deliberately focused on the steps we need to take to maintain (reevaluation at an appropriate later date, assignment of someone to oversee the issue in question, etc) the ground we gained. Because I think that vet was right – simply maintaining is a pipe dream.
We must choose to go forward.
Statistically speaking, I think it’s safe to say that my ideas are bad. I don’t mean that they are malignant or somehow wicked, just that 97% percent of them are less than what I’m hoping for. Half of them are below average.
And I’m learning to be ok with that.
I’m not looking for more average, I’m on the hunt for outliers. What’s that one thing, or that small cluster, which once implemented which will create a wave a change, a veritable cascade of value.
Take food for example. A tremendous amount of calories must be ingested in order to supply our natural bodies, and without that steady intake – we suffer. For many thousands of years, it was of highest importance to maintain food supply. Recently, the food supply in some parts of the world has been stabilized, and now we can turn our attention to other things – like this.
Insulin. A tiny amount is the difference between vigorous life and certain death.
It doesn’t matter if Banting, McLeod, Best, and Collip discovered dozens, or tens of thousands, of “dud”, or “useless”, organ extracts and organic compounds in the body. Insulin made it all worth it.
Like this blog. I expect to look back on this posts years from now and find that I’ve grown in understanding between now and then. The work I am doing now, even the work that I am putting the most energy and focus into, will hopefully look antiquated in light of the work I have yet to do.
So I’m ok with “bad” ideas. Ideas that don’t go anywhere. Ideas that don’t pan out to be game changing for me. I can let these go and move on. The only way to find the best ideas is to keep looking.
There yet remains undiscovered insulin.
I had a long conversation with a friend today. We covered politics, evolution, finances, college experiences and more. He would throw false dichotomies at me in jest as we got into a debate. I thought there was a single word, or a common expression, for a false dichotomy, but I couldn’t remember it right away. As almost any other 21st century westerner would do, I went to Google and searched the term.
I found this elegant piece on the importance of false dichotomies in programming. I immediately realized that I have relied entirely on constraining the inputs to my system, and I haven’t built in any handlers for when those inputs are novel. This gives me yet another way to make my next project a little more robust and a little more flexible.
Anyway, this conversation got me thinking about all the false dichotomies I have thrown myself into.
“I have to do exactly what the client wants, or they will hate me forever.”
“If there is any kind of setback, I must be going the wrong way.”
“I have to excersise for a full hour, or it’s not worth exercising at all.”
I spent a good portion of one long Ohio summer at my best friends house. I was 18 going on 19 that year. Josiah and I spent countless hours playing ping pong, hunting, and riding four wheelers that year. One evening some of his parents friends were over, and one of the ladies brought two new brake pads for her oldsmobile and she asked if Josiah’s dad, Chris, would change them out for her.
Chris said “sure, we will change them for you” and looking at Josiah and me, he said “why don’t you two go ahead and do that”.
I had never changed the brakes on a car before. He knew it wouldn’t be very difficult for us, since they were just disk brakes. Plus Chris had all the tools we needed; a nice floor jack, a compressor, and an impact wrench with all the bits we could want. It seemed scary at the start, because the brakes going out from a mistake we made would be devastating, but we got right at it anyway. We soon saw that it was just a series of little steps, and we had the capability to do it. So we went right to town, jacked up the car, took the old disks off and replaced them with the new ones. We made sure the calipers were freely movable, we bled the lines to ensure there wasn’t any air left in them and we checked the brake fluid up top.
It really didn’t take us too long, and then we asked Chris if we did it right. He said that sounded about right, so we took it for a test drive. I drove real slow at first. Pushed the brakes hard. Pushed them soft. Felt them bite and release. It was a fantastic experience. No one actually showed us how to change the brake pads.
We only used our previous experience from changing tires, and the stories we had heard about replacing pads (always bleed the lines), and figured it out. That experience encouraged me to take on more challenges.
I failed a few more times today.
I dropped the ball.
I missed the target.
So what now? It seems that I’m facing a dichotomy.
On one hand I want to play it safe. Back off the challenge, turn the pressure down, go back to the place I was comfortable. Before I go any farther in writing this, I want to make it very clear that I don’t believe that is the wrong choice. Sometimes that is exactly what should be done. In every football game there is a time to play defense. There is a time to focus on preservation over increase. Consider if you were at this moment on the mainland, awaiting Dorian, this is not the time to be casting nets. This would the time to bunker down, to play defense, to retreat. Heading for safety is the right thing to do.
But I am not facing Dorian. I am not staring at a catastrophic force of nature. I am under no imminent threat. No, I am only feeling the sting of my injured pride at making a false step in this dance. I am feeling the embaressment of shooting my arrow off mark. In this case, it wouldn’t help if I ran for safety. If I bowed out of the game now, I wouldn’t have the chance to grow. I wouldn’t get the full experience.
So instead I am facing the target, raising my arrow, and drawing my string. Exhale. Release.
I once reviewed some promotional material for LASIK surgery. The video was from a partnership of opthamologists that specialized in that type of surgery. One of their biggest selling points was the hefty years of combined experience of the group.
They went on to even brag that no one on their team had less than some number of years (I don’t remember for sure but I think it was at least 5 years). I thought it was great they could have such an experienced team, but I grew concerned when one of the senior partners said, on the video, that he believed you should never get LASIK surgery performed by someone who did not already have years of experience.
I thought this was a strange thing to say. It angered me.
How could someone ever get any experience, in a world where only those with prior experience get the chance?
How did this fellow talking justify his early days, his first experiences? Should those patients have never let him perform those first surgeries? Taken one step further, why should someone ever let a surgeon with 5 years of experience operate on them, when there is a surgeon with 6 years of experience also available?
Can’t we culturally make room for people just starting out?
Can’t we allow others into the game, even if they are going to make some mistakes along the way?
Where is the novice in our cultural story? Where is the space for the person showing up, failing, and still showing up again.
We need a retelling of Rocky, of someone going the distance, irrespective of whether they win or lose.
When I had only 17 years to my age, almost half a lifetime ago for me now, I spent a day volunteering at the District 4 Headquarters for The Ohio Department of Natural Resources. There were three of us, and we were taken in the employees’ only section to an empty conference room where several boxes sat full of papers on the large wooden table. Our supervising officer showed us how to take a paper from box 1, fold it into a paper from box 2, slip them both into an envelope from box 3 and then use the little sponge to make the sticky stuff sticky and close the envelope.
For the next several hours we did just that. Fold, stuff, seal, repeat. Those little envelopes would be picked up later by the postal service and sent all across the state to former patrons, asking them all once again for their money and support to the ODNR.
There was no glamour. There was nothing exciting. It was simply something that needed done, and we were willing to do it in order to make the connection with the district officers. I even felt like I was contributing to a distasteful part of our society (junk mail) but I convinced myself these letters were much less junky than all those that were simply selling something. Yes we were asking for money, but it was for a good cause.
At one point, we took a break and spent a few minutes peaking through the nearby rooms. Its true that we were “in the back” in the employees’ only section, but we figured we sort of classified as temporarily in the employ of the ODNR, plus the rooms were on our way to and from the bathroom.
Well my friend Jerrod noticed a coat rack in the one of the other rooms, and hanging up on that rack was that unmistakable symbol of the Ohio Wildlife Officer, a forest green jacket. This one was the winter model, complete with the fur lining around the neck. We stood in awe for a second and then Jerrod took it and put it on. One by one we tried it on, the coat worn by those select few who had achieved what we all dreamed, to be a game warden.
I was suprised at how I felt when I put it on. I immediately knew that it was too large for me. I wasn’t ready to wear that coat. I was just a kid, and someone in that position had a heck of a lot more experience, wisdom, and age than I did. I was an imposter. Now at 31 years old I am learning more and more that I can never, ever, be ready for every situation.
I am learning the art of navigating troubled waters. I am learning to live with the flames close by. I am learning to walk in the light that I have, even when all else is dark around.
A Flavor In-Between 