Two Work Cultures

There are two types of work cultures.

One is the culture of blame.  In this culture, the primary push is to avoid getting blamed for failure or not accomplishing goals.  The work environment is one where everyone is keenly aware of what their particular task is, when they did it, and precisely how long the next person in the chain has had it.  Meetings in this culture usually devolve into discussions of what has not been done, who has not done it, and how long it has remained undone. 

The other is culture of getting things done.  In this culture, the primary push is to solve problems.  Individuals within each function may have tasks that are contributing to the whole, and may even find themselves in the position of not having accomplished certain things - but on the whole there is not a sense of any one person being singled out.  Blame is not emphasized (although responsibility may be pointed out for significant outstanding tasks); instead, the point of the work is to move things to completion and conclusion.

One of these cultures emphasizes the end result.  The other culture emphasizes not getting blamed and accomplishing your own tasks, even if the end result is not achieved.

The overall effect?  The first culture creates an atmosphere of back watching and documentation, where people spend as much time covering themselves as they do doing the work.  The other culture creates an atmosphere where people are willing to admit mistakes more freely, work collaboratively, and ultimately succeed together.

Which culture would you want to work in?

Unexpected Free Time

Yesterday evening something happened which has not happened in a very long time:  I had free time and nothing to fill it with.

It crept up on me unaware.  I looked up after dinner and washing dishes and it was only 7:00 PM.  I started going through my list of things I usually do.  Harp?  I had done it already.  Iaido?  I had class that night.  Weight Training?  Done yesterday.  Suddenly I found myself at a loose end.

Which struck me as ridiculous.  Here I am, someone who constantly has things I would like to be working on (or in the case of work, have to be working on), without an immediate thing at hand to do and no idea what I should be doing.  Had it really been so long since I had the concept of free time thrust into my hand?

What did I do? I finally read, something which I ordinarily love to do - but not the first thing that jumped to my mind.  Even when I was reading, I had this constant sense of nagging at the back of my mind, as if there was something else - some undefined quite important thing - that I should be doing instead of what I was doing.

The whole incident lasted only an hour, but the sense of it followed me to class, back home, and into the bed at night.  Perhaps I am wrong, but the fact that free time comes as a surprise and I have to struggle to fill it with something I enjoy tells me - perhaps - that there is perhaps not enough extra time built into the fabric of my life.  After all, activities we do should be something that we enjoy, not chores which become burdensome tasks in their own right.  And free time should not be seen as an unexpected guest with nowhere to sit but as an expected friend with a comfortable chair and a book waiting for it.

Because free time, like guests, will eventually find its way to other doors if not welcomed at our own.

Star Run

Stars shine above me
as I move through the darkness,
running towards dawn.

Not Feeling It

I'm not really feeling it this morning.

To be fair, I was not really feeling it all day on Sunday either.  It was just a lethargy, a sense that I didn't really want to do anything - and whatever I did try to do went nowhere.  No interest.  No energy.  No effort.  Just a sense of of "Leave me alone".

There was just this vast sense of things not making a difference no matter how much I try.  No matter what goals I set, no matter what I try to do, most of my life seems to be remarkably stable - or staid, depending on how you want to look at it.

And now Monday has come.

I don't quite understand this feeling.  It is not so much a feeling of depression as it is of having no energy to speak of at all - or at least, energy for action.  I don't feel unable to move and make efforts, I feel uninterested in moving and making efforts.

Why?  A very good question indeed, one I wish I had a better answer to.  In the back of my head is the suggestive thought that no matter what I try to do, it always seems to lead me back to about the same place.  Or perhaps it is processing the thought (yet again) that choices I made years ago have finally proven to lock me into a place where I did not anticipate being and now that I am here, leave me unable to attempt to move out from under them.

I wish I knew the cause, because existing without a level of interest in anything is as painful as it is boring.

Past and Present

Do do-overs exists?

I am not talking about the ordinary kind of course, the "Hey I wrote that wrong, let me correct it" or "I forgot milk at the store - let me run back and get it.".  No, I am thinking of the "Peggy Sue Got Married" kind,  the big step back in time or space to have the chance to re-cast a significant decision.

I ask not so much from the need to step back and retake a particular decision (although is there not a decision we would all like to remake?) so much as reconsideration of the purpose of wisdom in our life and how we use it going forward.  It is an interesting conundrum:  we only gain experience as we move through life, but it is always most easily applied looking behind us to what has been.  It is far more difficult to apply what we have learned to what is coming up.

That is the great part of movies that take someone back.  They have the benefit of having lived through the impact of their decisions - both the good and the bad elements - and can carefully weigh whether a different course would be worth it.  They can apply what they have already learned to the decision that they could make again and theoretically evaluate if a different one would have been better.

It seldom is of course, at least in the movies, and the character always determines that the decision they made was the correct one even with all of the bumps in the road that may have occurred since them.  Is it fear of the unknown of the new decision?  Is it a realization that every decision results in good and bad things in our lives?  Or is it that they are simply using the wisdom that they gained to inform their decision to live with the choices that they have made?

There are, of course, no time-space continuum jumps that allow us to go back and remake the decisions of our lives - yet interestingly, there are countless opportunities which cleverly hide themselves as new incidents or decisions to be made but are in fact simply versions of the choices and incidents we have faced in our past.  These, then, are the true "do-over" situations that occur to us every day:  not that we go back in time to remake a decision, but that we have the opportunity to make a decision using the wisdom that we have gained. 

The question is, will we apply what we have learned in the here and now based on the past?  Or will we continue to think longingly of the day our lives changed because of a decision, never realizing that the past is present today?

Carrying Motivation

Motivation can be a hard thing to capture at times, especially when the motivation you are trying to capture is to break out of a current chain which you care little for.

You want too, of course and you should have every reason:  the road that led to this point is has reached a wall that simply cannot be crossed and other roads seem to branch off from this point.   And to say on this current course of action is to ensure that nothing changes at all and nothing will change at all, that you will be exactly in the same condition you are, the condition you loathe so much.

And yet you sit there, looking at the wall, unable to turn.

Why?  Because you suddenly realize that every road that leads from this wall is really just leading to the same sort of wall somewhere else.  The scenery may change but the end result at least seems to be the same as the result you are facing.   And thus motivation slips between your fingers as you consider the fact that in changing, you are likely not to change anything at all.

Which is a bit ridiculous, of course.  Not all change is bad, even if it lies in merely shifting from one thing to another in the same palette.  We cannot see all things that will happen in the future even though parts of it look the same as they current existence we have.  The thing that looks so similar to that which currently know may in fact be the gateway into something we totally cannot imagine at this point. 

It is foolish not to at least try these other roads - but oh, the sinking sense of turning to face a road on which the pavement and lines appear so much like road that we are on.  In a sense it almost becomes an act of faith, a belief that things can change even when they seem that they cannot.

Which makes for an important lesson:  motivation cannot always be counted on to be the initiator of an action.  Sometimes we must carry it on our backs until, energized by progress, it is able to start walking on its own.

Ash Wednesday 2013

The cold wind blows leaves:
I, too, am broken parts blown
in life's hurricanes.

A Commitment to Excellence, A Commitment to More

A commitment to doing more is becoming more and more difficult for many.

It concerns me, because I work in an industry in which the standards are always increasing, not decreasing - yet so often the response is "Why do we have to do that?  It is more work."  The problem is, I see that becoming more and more of an issue not just within the work environment but outside of it as well, where anything which does not enterain falls into the category of "boring".

I know - potentially I sound like a grumpy oldster, reminiscing on those days of yore when we pounded rocks to make our own sand.  But I am also an observer of human nature, and think I have lived long enough (and certainly read enough) that I can begin to make some consclusions about cause and effect.

To succeed in anything is to do more.  It is to consciously move beyond the minimum of effort to reach a higher level.  The hackneyed phrase "There is no shortcut to excellence" is true.  It takes more than just what we are willing to do - it takes what we must do.

I'm sure that many understand this in the context of things they like to do.  Where they would disagree with me in the things they have to do:  the unpleasant tasks, the boring tasks, the tasks that we "must" do.  To these sorts of tasks, the thought too often is that "minimal is enough".  The fact that the thought is often echoed consciously or unconsciously by those above them who are more concerned with results rather than doing things correctly and completely only strengthens this opinion.

But where does this thought pattern lead, this thought of not doing more simply because we don't like it or it bores us?  We hate to consider that those who serve us would also have such an opinion - after all, our food should be fully cooked, our paint preparation fully mixed, our car to be completely fixed instead of partially fixed.  In every way that impacts our lives, we believe that we should be the focus of an effort of 100% completeness, every time - even if it takes doing more.

But if that is our expectation of others, why is that not the expectation of ourselves?

The reality that history and human experience demonstrates to us is this:  given long enough, a lack of doing more in even the most trivial of things becomes a habit.  Habits become lifestyles.  Lifestyles become the societal norm. But society is a complex mechanism involving thousands, perhaps even millions of smoothly working parts.  If enough of those parts become broken - if the individual wheels of effort are removed from their axles because it is too much effort to do them - then eventually the machine will break down - and the society colllapse.

Overstating the case?  Possibly.  But ask yourself this:  if the effort I sink into my most boring task is the same amount of effort that my mechanic sank in to fixing my brakes, would I drive my car?

Excellence is something that springs from a sincere life of effort - sine cera, without wax to hide the cracks in our plateware but as a whole which is complete and thorough.  We cannot pretend to separate effort in some parts of our lives from a lack of effort in other parts of our lives and maintain that we seek to live a life of excellence.

Re-Writing

I realized yesterday that I have made a fatal error in my writing:  I let myself become defined by what I was willing to do rather than what I needed to do. 

In a great many things I am self taught.  This has the advantage of 1) being able to understand how to pick up something and begin a course of study and 2) being able to learn something outside of the "normal" system of instruction.  The disadvantage, of course, is that one tends to feel that one may be missing specific or useful elements. 

And so one tries to compensate.  One writes, for example, but one has never had any formal training in creative writing.  The solution?  Buy a book of exercises and start doing those in hopes that additional improvements will present themselves.  Unfortunately, the problem with this theory is that exercises are never quite as exciting as writing - and so, one comes to define one's writing by what exercise one has completed.  Find a book with enough exercises to deflate the soul, and one stops writing very much at all.

Which is silly.  This is a paradigm that I really need to break away from.  In this era of multiple alternate learning techniques and technologies, I am still plodding away with something that does not seem to be working all that well.

What is the best way to improve writing?  Write.  Any published author would tell you that.  The important thing is to write - regularly, consistently - even if it does not result in the completion of exercises or a book.  By doing, we learn - not necessarily by performing exercises.

And so I have corrected this fatal mistake.  I have gone back to the model that did work for me via Nanowrimo:  a set number of words for a set period of time.  I'm not quite up to the level of November, of course- I'm not seeking to prove I can write a book in a month (I've done that already).  What I am seeking to do is to give myself a vehicle whereby I can insure that I write frequently and consistently.

Exercises do not determine results.  Results determine results - and reward.

Write on, Friends.

Specialist or Generalist?

Does one do one thing well, or many things reasonably?

This is the puzzle to which I keep coming back: is focus on one thing the path to success or a more generalized knowledge of many things?

Specialists are useful, of course, and well rewarded.  They have keen insights into the nature of whatever it is they are specialists of.  They are able in many cases to command high salaries.  The best of them never go without a position.

But my restraint in not wholeheartedly being a fan is that specialization is a fine thing as long as your speciality is in demand.  When it falls by the wayside, or even when it becomes less important than it was, you find yourself in the position of having too many crocodiles in a rapidly drying pool.  Spend time around a dying industry and you will discover precisely how polite even the most educated can be when the focus of their years of experience and expertise is disappearing.

Generalists are not nearly as well rewarded as a rule.  But they are useful:  the ability to pull from a vast store of knowledge can be a great thing for problem solving.  And perhaps they don't know as much about one thing, but they do know something about a great many things.  This makes them more flexible.

Specialists and generalists both have their place, of course:  without specialists we would not have the advances in technology and medicine that we have; without generalists much of the underlying work to make these advances possible would not be performed.  Both types are necessary to keep the ecosystem of society moving forward.

Which am I?  I'm generalist.  I'm just too interested in too many things (most of which will never be a direct career choice, of course:  the roles of harpists and swordsmen are fairly limited in our current society) to become an expert in one.  There are just too many interesting things in life to specialize:  even when I am reading, I inevitably find more that I could learn about.  I need to become better, of course:  if one wants to do something well, one must acquire some level of expertise in something.

But some level is not to the exclusion of everything else.  I may (as I do) have to learn more about my career field to move along in it; that will never replace the need (and want) to learn about cheese and cattle and Japanese history and why bees do what they do.

Because you never know when the battle of Ichi-no-tani will inform your day to day life.

Question Without Answer

Why am I doing all this?

I ask myself as I watch my schedule morph from day to day until I find the bulk of my time and energy is taken up by work - not just longer hours and more to do, but more time that it lives on my brain.  With the hours, of course, comes either less sleep or earlier bedtime, which cuts into doing the things I really do enjoy doing.  Before I know it, I am suddenly in the thrall of that which must be done with a sprinkling on top of that which I might like to do.

Why am I doing all this?

It is certainly not for any sense of getting ahead - that door has pretty much effectively closed at this point.  Nor is it from some glorified sense of "doing good" - I've been doing what I am doing long enough to know the limitations of that area.  Out of fear?   Possibly - fear of being singled out as ineffective, lazy, a non-performer - but even then that doesn't seem explain the larger sense of why I push myself harder and harder at something which I know in my heart of heart makes no difference.

Why am I doing all this?

There are no "good solider" awards for life that I am aware of.  Effort alone is no guarantee of any kind of reward - and I have been doing my line of work long enough to know that the lights can go off with very little notice indeed. 

It is just in my heart of hearts I cannot believe that collecting data and writing documents for things that will not matter in five years is hardly living life to the fullest.

Why am I really doing all this?

Rain Running

Shoes beating pavement,
the sky is beating my head:
wet hair and wet feet.

Servant

I wrestled last night with the concept of being a servant.

A servant.  Second violin.  Someone who quietly works in the background, doing what needs to be done without fanfare.  A very difficult concept for me - not the working quietly in the background of course - 15 years in my job field have prepared me for that - but the fact that this very well may be what there is.

There is - was? - a point at which I really kept hoping that I was leader material, that I would be a leader.  To set the tone, to be in front, to boldly move into areas with others following.  And to be recognized as such.

But the tone of my life - if I'm honest about it - is not that at all.  Whether if by seemingly taking myself out or being silently removed by God, those positions that I had thought I would do or was fit to do have turned into doors which quietly, peacefully were closed in my face.

Ah, says the world at large.  That's okay - the world needs doers.  We need a silent army of people to do the very important minutiae that needs to be accomplished.  It's not as if everyone can be a leader - but everyone can be a servant.

Which is fine, I suppose.  It's not as if my attempts at leadership have been that successful up to this point - and people are always ready for more help.

But I guess the thing that unsettles me as I see those horizons darken is simply the fact that a servant is never recognized.  The work is expected to be accomplished and more often than not scarcely acknowledged when it is.  To be a servant seems to be an acceptance of the fact that one will not lead - and by not leading, one comes to accept that the act of accomplishing a task is more than likely all the acknowledgement that will come.

To accept that fact that most of what one does will be unrecognized may be facing the truth as it comes, but it is hardly the sort of fact that makes the truth comforting.

Non-resolution

There is nothing worse that being consumed by a problem that you cannot resolve.

This is what ended up consuming me last week, turning all of my attention inward, ensuring that I was essentially unable to work on anything else.  By the time Friday rolled around I was mentally and physically exhausted, wrapped up in a battle that I was not fighting with the problem but within myself - a battle that I simply cannot win.

It confused me a bit when I finally was able to sit and look at it relatively rationally on Sunday.  After all, how could something that I thought I could impact end up being such a dead end, leaving me exhausted (and incredibly upset)?  One is supposed to take action on one's problems; what happens if by taking action it simply means you do nothing at all?

The same story awaits me this week as it did last week.  The problem is still there and it still won't go away.  What will I do?  Will I seek to attempt to manage it via my emotions and energy and become the same person that I was last week?

No.  That simply won't do. 

Instead - at least for this problem - it is time to finally acknowledge the fact that there is simply nothing to be done about it in my power.  All I will be able to do go through my day head down, eyes on my tasks, setting emotion aside until I reach the end of my day, when I can begin to spend time and energy on that which is important.

That which we cannot change, we must endure.

Strength

Like the wind blown oak,
I woke up one morning and
found that I was strong.

Wall

There are days
where it simply doesn't feel
as if I can do anything right.

The day where,
after working for hours on something,
you realize you've really made
no progress at all.

There is nothing as depressing
as such a day:
you spend the rest of the evening in shock,
reviewing everything you did
and seeing it turn to ash.

And then, sighing,
you get up to start the day again.

Is it simply that you have missed something
that was there all along,
or that you are so mired in today
you cannot see tomorrow?

Crossroads of Skill and Time

I am coming to find myself at a crossroads.

I keep looking for the ability to succeed in areas that I know and am comfortable; what I am finding is those areas (for the most part) are simply crowding me out.

The Ravishing Mrs. TB said it best to a friend:  "It's not as if he doesn't have things he likes to do; it's just that he can't get paid for them."  True enough, I suppose - and it tracks with my thinking that more and more, success is truly achieved when you are doing what you want to be doing - and doing it well.

Can people succeed at doing what they don't like doing?  Of course they can - people do it every day.  But what I suspect - at least what is true in my own life - is that succeeding in something you don't really care for is like binding a heavy stone to your back and walking up a steep mountain.  You can make it of course, but you will be excessively exhausted when you do and probably not have enjoyed the journey.

Effort equals skill and skill leads to success.  But effort takes time and time to succeed - time to practice, time to learn - and it only comes freely when we find something we are willing to spend the time in.  When we find something that we enjoy.

I write "looking to succeed in areas I know that I am comfortable" because in the last few weeks it has become apparent that in some of those areas, I am simply not going to move forward.  I can expend additional effort in them but the chance that it will result in increased reward is slim to none.

And thus, I find myself at the crossroads.

I have (in the back of my head) occasional visions of what I could and would if I were succeeding in what I truly enjoyed.  They are sometimes wild to be sure and off the beaten path (although, I suppose, not off the path for anyone who knows me), but they are the sorts of things that putting effort into is no difficulty at all but rather a joy.  The sort of things that one springs out of bed to accomplish in the morning instead of dragging one's self out with a shudder.

The crossroads is coming.  How do I turn?

Deciding and 40 Miles

I'm trying to run farther.

The genesis of this is silly thing:  in a fit of "I can set a goal" on my electronic trainer program, I put in a goal of 40 mile in three weeks.  Not a big deal, right?  That didn't account for the New Home cold, where I missed some days (as I mistakenly figured that 30 F was too cold to run).  Suddenly,  I looked to the timing and realized I had only 43% completed with a week to go.  I calculated the difference - and found that, with a little pushing on my part, I could make it.

And so, starting yesterday, my mileage went up.

The biggest challenge I found is not that the distance is about twice what I usually run.  That's not so hard as I'm not running for time (now) - maybe that will come later.  The hardest challenge has actually been the fact that I am really running that far.

It comes down to mental decisions - something that I have pondered and noted before.  The decision that, before I even step on to the road, I am going to run the distance that I am going to run.

Knowing that decision up front makes the whole event a great deal easier.  Certainly there are places where I can step aside and pull back, that I can peel off early and go home to the cup of coffee that awaits me.  But I've decided in my mind that I am going to accomplish this thing, and so I am committed to doing it.

The remarkable thing, of course, is that life is no different.

We complete that which we set our minds to.  Think in your own life: what are those things which you did completely?  They are the things which you decided to do - up front, before you even began the thing. 

This is a critical step and one often missed.  How often have I done the opposite:  started an activity not deciding up front that I would finish it and then, when I get halfway through and am suddenly bored or tired or have lost interest, finding the way out prior to finishing.

Commitment is the key.

Does it have to be a written commitment?  Some writers would say yes - and maybe in some situations that is true.  Certainly I don't write down finishing my run in the morning - but I decide it in my head before I step out the door.

Will I make my running goal?  I don't know - even without a commitment, it is still a fair distance to make up.  But even in trying, I have found another key to success:  Decide before you Do.

Ungrateful and Contentious

     "And they (the children of Israel) journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt.  Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.  And the children of Israel said to them "Oh, that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full.  For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." - Exodus 16: 1-3

     "Then all the congregation of the children of Israel set out on their journey from the Wilderness of Sin, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped in Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.  Therefore the people contended with Moses and said, "Give us water, that we may drink.
      So Moses said to them, "Why do you contend with me?  Why do you tempt the LORD?"
     And the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses, and said "Why is it you have brought us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?"  - Exodus 17:1-3


We know the story, right?  The Children of Israel, that ungrateful lot of grumblers, complained their way across the Sinai until, in the height of their sin and grumbling, they were punished by God with denial into the Promised Land and 40 years of wandering until that generation died off.  Next slide, please, showing the Conquest of the Promised Land.

But wait?  Notice the chapter heading.  Only three chapters previously in Exodus 11-12 God freed the people from slavery and only 2 chapters earlier in Exodus 13 He parted the Red Sea.  We are not talking about a long period of time between one event and another.  This was only weeks, perhaps days, after God's miraculous actions.

And God abandoning them?  The Pillar of Fire went forth by night and the Pillar of Cloud by day, a visible presence of God's guidance and protection.  They were hardly alone.

Yet in spite of all this, they seem to act as if none of this had happened and that they are completely alone.  Instead of remaining in a place of gratitude, they attack God for failing to provide for them.

They attack.  Notice that.  They don't ask humbly, in faith.  They don't beg.  They demand, they contend:  "Give us!  You brought us here to kill us!"

We snicker a bit mentally perhaps, say "idiots" to ourselves, and read on.  But are we any different?  We have God's spirit within us.  We have His promise to always be with us.  We have His daily provisions for us.  Yet we are no different, screaming "Give us this" at the top of our lungs and demanding that God fulfill our needs in our ways instead of trusting in Him.

God guard us from ungrateful hearts and demanding spirits that fail to see His goodness and fail to trust in His provision

Turning from Sadness

"Therefore, my advice to you, friends,
is to turn aside from troubled and anxious reflection
on your own progress,
and escape to the easier paths of remembering the
good things God has done.
In this way, instead of becoming upset by thinking
about yourself,
you will find relief by turning your attention to
God...
Sorrow for sin is indeed a necessary thing,
but it should not prevail all the time.
On the contrary, it is necessary that happier
recollections of God's generosity
should counterbalance it,
lest the heart should become hardened through too
much sadness
and so perish in despair."

- Bernard of Clairvaux, The Way of Simplicity, Esther De Waal