Every Sunday, I write to the person who did everything right and still ended up stuck. The Rethinkers newsletter is where I name what the system does not want you to notice, and what to do once you see it. One perspective. One invitation to think differently. Straight to your inbox.
The System Doesn't Do Patient
|
Hey ReThinker, It's all about KPIs in this world. Key Performance Indicators. Productivity. Speed. Outcomes. In such a context, an idea that has not yet "performed" is a worthless idea. So we rush it, or we abandon it, or we let the whisper convince us it was never good enough to begin with. That's wrong. You remember Gerdy, and how he carried glass shards in his pocket in The Drifter's Journey part 2? Just carrying them, until their purpose would become clear. I keep coming back to that image because I think it is exactly what creatives do with ideas. We carry them. The system would be quick to discard them. But we let them sit, we let them simmer. And the longer an idea marinates, the more it gathers: flavour, richness, depth, cohesion. Things a rushed job cannot claim. The shame you feel about your unfinished idea? Stop listening to that. It's the system's voice, not yours. Time is your ally. Let it do its thing. Another thing time allows you to do: have hindsight. This week on YouTube I am going deeper into how the promise of corporate stability was always an illusion, and how I lived inside that illusion before I saw it for what it was. If that speaks to you, come join the reflection. Time gave me another kind of hindsight this week, in the form of an analogy I did not go looking for. We have trees in our backyard that I kept calling banana trees. They look like banana trees, but to my surprise, they're not. They are plantain trees. Different varieties too: one bears green plantains, the other red ones. One is called Dolé. I did not know any of this until I saw the respective fruits. My first reading was wrong. It was Time that corrected me. There is a biblical expression: "you will know them by their fruit". I think it is pointing at something deeper than morality. It is pointing at patience as a method of knowing. You cannot always tell what something is before it has had the chance to become itself. That applies to trees. It applies to people. And it applies to your ideas. Give them the time to breathe. Don't fall for the system's preference for expediency. It doesn't like giving time. That is exactly why you should. That is it for this week. Have a Sage Sunday and a Wise Week! Agape. R |
Join the Rethinkers
Every Sunday, I write to the person who did everything right and still ended up stuck. The Rethinkers newsletter is where I name what the system does not want you to notice, and what to do once you see it. One perspective. One invitation to think differently. Straight to your inbox.
Yello, This week I have been researching a psychological concept: cognitive biases. So I present to you 2 ideas colliding: Survivorship bias and negativity bias. The idea of survivorship bias is that if you survive a situation, or if you win, you think everyone could too. It explains why gurus will tell you you can be a successful entrepreneur if only you did what they did. Now, negativity bias. I have to admit, I tend to be very sceptical of tales of success, I just know they generally don't...
Yello! After a little moment of quiet, I'm back with a little reflection, a little story. Growing up, I was a late bloomer. Short, slim... So I was an easy target for bullies. Thank goodness I wasn't ALWAYS bullied. But it happened a few times. There's this one time, I was about 14 I think. This student was shoving me for no other reason but to show off. I was shaking because I was aware I wasn't a fighter. But somehow I felt compelled to eventually shove back. The adrenaline must have done a...
Yello, So you know I had 6 days to do an audiobook? It's been an obstacle course. On the last recording day, I fell sick. Not so sick I couldn't work, thankfully. But it did throw another spanner in the works. I say another spanner because there were several this week. It's not a rant. There will be a morale in the end, so bear with me! First, I started recording with the wrong app. 2 stories in, I had to find an alternative. I found an app called Audacity. It's free. Great! I downloaded the...