We imagine there can be nothing smoother than a water droplet running along a pane of glass. From our ordinary perspective it seems to roll as freely as anything possible, yet when watched closely we see that the motion is made of many pixilated jumps, sort of a jerky dance of stops and starts, of wiggling back and forth.
Our days proceed similarly. We jump from thought to thought, often unaware of the many byways and stoppages, the leaping about and the escapes from blockages. We were designed by nature to be machines of both focus and distraction. Without focus, we would never follow through on anything, the rendering of this sentence and reception would both be impossible. Yet, without the natural inclination for our brains to be distractible, we would get stuck any time anything unrecognizable or novel occurs, as it takes this jumping about from thought to thought within our memory to make all the required associations, comparisons and measurements. We also begin to blend past associations with the present in ways that combine multiple fabrications, objects, what have you, to make sense of the unknown that is in front of us.
Our brains are like three dimensional window surfaces with billions of water droplets moving hither on yon, at blinding speeds, and to parts of that surface that have been designated for particular functions, generating a holographic-like gauziness of cognitive array, that gets meshed together in what we call experience. And beyond ourselves, we are like a single droplet in a much larger array of individual people sharing common languages, concepts, events, projects, aspirations, some which complement and some of which conflict. In other words we are individually made up of multiple interactions, and we ourselves are particles of a larger set of interactions, and on every level there is this smooth/jerkiness type processing that enfolds each disparate part.
The Whole System is a mess, and we are part of that mess. And we have much to celebrate. The chaos we try to keep at bay is us, is life itself. Go figure. Granted we need ways of organizing it in our minds so that we can somehow get things done, so out of the millions of years of the churnings of military strategies and philosophical dialogs, we have these residual sets of concepts and practices inhabiting the business world, i.e. those that make up what we call project management and business analysis. Some of these concepts and practices are things we have been trained to do on the job, of course, or through certification programs that work hand-in-hand with what we are doing in a working capacity. Many of the skills, most of them in fact, are things we have brought to our jobs from previous experience, from our formal and informal education up to this point, from our bantering about, and bumping into things. From growing up.
What makes a person unique, exceptional, extra-valuable, is rarely the stuff that gets taught in the formalized programs, the certs and training events, but is the stuff that you’ve learned from adapting, combining ideas from different systems and worlds that you live in. A mathematical or musical background will shape the array of raindrops differently than one more focused on language or mechanics. All your accumulated learnings, habits, and expertise come into play, as soon as you begin to think in a continued state of blending, which helps you adapt to your surroundings, challenges, what it is you are trying to get done.
A formal education is a great thing, as are the specific and focused training events that have given you the tools to operate at your current job according to its description. But none of us really operate according to plan, or are really so neatly described. We are ever at the edge of the familiar and organized world looking out over the chaos and currently unknowable that we need to navigate, and that is a job for artists. Yes, you are an artist whether you like it or not. We are all artists. And as artists we each have the freedom and responsibility to combine all parts of what we know to create the best value for ourselves, our clients, our world, whether it’s an enhancement to an application, a software implementation or organizational change, even something vaster, our moment to moment living in the world that we hope we hope is better off because of us.
What is it in that vast mesh of noise, your particular alchemy of ideas and experience that you are made of, that you haven’t combined and tapped yet that will make a difference in your world and in others? What is it that you’re going to do this year that will leave an imprint of excellence either in your current work world, or around the world? This is something we all need to think about, as the world needs you, and after all, it is the beginning of a new year.
OUR world needs you at your best, which may be easier than you think. Instead of the stress and strain, the habits of conflict you may always seem to bring to all you are faced to do, why not think of the jerky smoothness that really gets things done anyway, whether it knows it or not?