Sometimes a tree is just a tree and tells a story all its own. And that story might bring with it issues like scarcity, insecurity, and futility. And when it does, it might be time to tell a different one by doing something. Anything.
Being in the game, creating content, having fun, and letting the passion and personality of our story shine through is the true standard of excellence. Not which arbitrary set of rules we’re playing by this week.
Life is hardly simple. But it’s easy to think it was once, in a different time or at a younger age. Really, though, life was just as complicated then as it is now. What’s changed is that we can see the water now, all around us.
Is unpredictability a bug? Or a feature? Any good story worth telling (or living) hinges to some extent on not knowing what’s going to happen next.
We all have our darlings, don’t we? Those well-crafted memories and anecdotes and personal insights that we’ve been polishing and fine-tuning for years. Maybe even decades. But are they serving us? Or slowing us down?
When reality grabs hold of our best-laid plan and turns it into something so complicated that we can’t recognize it, don’t despair. This just means you’ve been handed a much better story to tell.
It always starts with a barely noticeable clicking noise. Then eventually it gets so loud that you can’t ignore it anymore. That sense of needing to better understand our story so we can take the next step forward …
Sometimes, when a story is too big to tell, the best you can do is start by describing the situation as it stands now. In the case of centuries-old systemic racism, the situation is that not nearly enough progress has been made to put an end to it.
Sometimes when things get strange and stressful, we have to get creative. We need to be willing to let go of the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, our industry, our customers, and and the world. And tell a new one.
What some are finding it hard to do is juggle two states of being at once. Grieving the sudden and inexplicable loss of the Old Normal, while at the same time trying to embrace the possibilities and opportunities presented by the New Normal.