Drawers

I had an opportunity not too long ago to visit the hospital, and while I was there, I was noticing the drawers, cabinets, and equipment they had around the room. Of course everything was on wheels and there were all sorts of different machines, signs and bins for disposal of all the various stuff.

What truly stuck out to me were two rolling carts with drawers.

One of them was this large rolling cart with multi colored drawers. Each drawer in addition to being a color was also labeled: Pink/Red, Purple, Yellow, White, Blue, Orange, and Green. On the opposite side of each drawer, was a piece of masking tape with another label scribbled onto it in the usual doctor’s handwriting. Each drawer had at least one and most of them then had the first label crossed out with a sharpie and a new label written on it. Equally illegible.

The other cart was all the same color, a drab sterile grey-ish color. The cart had large labels on it. Each label was a folded piece of paper shoved into a clear sleeve that was glued to the front of the drawer. The label printed in a plain font in all caps. It was far from a genius design, but it made the necessary point. No room for ambiguity.

As you live your life, which are you?

In a hospital room, I want to know my nurse, doctor, surgeon, or EMT is reaching for the drawer labeled MEDS when she is looking for the necessary meds to keep me alive. I do not want her opening the Orange drawer and then opening the White drawer and then opening the Red/Pink drawer to find what she needs.

If my son is putting his toys away, I want the multicolored rolling drawers. I can work with him to learn his colors and help him access/store his toys. He needs more opportunities to work with colors, not fewer.

When someone talks to you, are they talking to the grey drab well labeled drawers, when they need the multicolored drawers, poorly labeled, but full of personality? Or does your job need the consistent and stable grey drawers, well labeled and ready for action and you are trying to be the brightly colored poorly labeled drawers and making everyone’s day more difficult?

How do you need to change to better suit your work environment? How does your product need to change to better suit its use case?

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EXCITE

When I’m texting, I will add in exclamation points more often than I would for pretty much anything else I write. I am especially fond of the emoji exclamation points (‼️❗️⁉️). I know I’m not the only one, many other people I text will do the same thing.

I will add in exclamation points to indicate extra positivity or emphasis even when I do not think I would normally. It is always a struggle to decide whether or not I should even add them in.

The reality is though, they do not matter or count anymore.

When there is an exclamation point in a text. It does not really matter. I will get a 100 or more text messages a day and if a few of them have an exclamation point. No. Big. Deal.

Contrast my text messages with longer form writing, there are almost no exclamation points. There are periods, commas, occasionally a semicolon, almost never a colon, and even fewer exclamation points.

Exclamation points in a text message do not have the same purpose. They do not perform the same function. They most certainly are not as rare. And they are as common as sand in the desert.

The exclamation point is a tool for communicating excitement and we are frivolously using it as if it hardly means anything at all. The only difference is long form and text messages. Text messages happen all the time. Rarely do we sit down to write a long form letter.

Sitting down to do more long form writing we could develop a better sense of value for the exclamation point. Whereas when throw this golden hammer around so easily, we lose perspective on the true power it can posses.

Similarly, if we sat and watched a road crew pave a road, we might be more patient with the small pothole on the highway. The crew has an immense power and it is incredibly labor intensive to fix one pot hole much less an entire neighborhood of boulevard of them.

Spend a day watching your barista, you might be more forgiving that they used soy milk instead of almond milk in your drink this morning.

Follow around your mayor or senator for a day and you might be a little bit more patient with them as they tend to their jobs.

These modern marvels surround us every day and they have a face behind them.

What luxuries have you become too familiar with? What valuables are you taking for granted? Whose work are you taking for granted? Who are you being too critical of? How can you give value to the people you are taking for granted?

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Zooming Out

An ant is tiny. The ant cannot comprehend the size of the continent it is on. It has no concept of the value and purpose it has in the context of the whole. It is digging, carrying, and working for the good of the whole with no any context at all.

Like the ant, a rat in a maze is wandering aimlessly through his labyrinth style prison following his senses looking for his goal.

To the ant, the ant hill is a large and a rocky knoll is a mountain. To the mouse the maze’s walls are the world it lives inside.

Our advantage is being able to stop and take a look down on their situations. We have perspective. There are globes to give us context of where we fit into the rest of the world. Our phones have maps with GPS to show us how to navigate the maze of roads, highways, and freeways we interact with.

How easily still do we find ourselves plowing through life with the same perspective as the ant and mouse?

My goals slowly narrow my perspective clouds from a wide angle at 150º or so down to 90º. Still a decent field of vision and useful to be successful, but not what it was. My vision still then narrows more until I am seeing less and less. At the end I am so focused on my goals I have been sucked into a 2 degree field of vision.

I am focused on my own problems and cannot see the value of my work in the context of the whole. I forget where I am and what my value is. I get my priorities out of alignment. I start to encourage marginal gains and growth sacrificing the bigger picture.

My tunnel vision is now costing us any progress we should be making and instead I cannot see around the biases I have developed. I cannot hear other voices through the noise I make. I are so focused on not tripping and being hurt again we cannot see the cliff we are about to walk off.

When was the last time you zoomed out on your life? When did you last assess your goals? What are your goals? What do you want to say you accomplished? What do you want to have said of you when you die?

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Shipping

When I drop something off with the USPS or UPS or FedEx. They take it and immediately start moving it towards the intended destination as fast as they should. They do not have the option to sit on it or wait. They have been given my parcel to be delivered and they have the responsibility of getting it there.

Similarly, when I have an idea, passion, or solution. I have the responsibility to take it to the logical end. I cannot sit on it and rob the world of the idea and keep it from helping others or implementing it into a system. These ideas are meant to better the world around me. I have to let them out and help everyone else I can.

My friends.

My coworkers.

My family.

I have to put my ideas out there otherwise I am robbing other people of the better life I can help them have. The better life I could have. All because I shipped my idea and did not sit on it anymore. Not that my ideas are the key to success, but they are a step in the journey.

What ideas are you holding back from implementing? For yourself and others, what problems and solutions do you see? Who can help you ship more of your ideas?

Shipping,

–JT

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Minimal Perspective

Pretty regularly we load up our little boy and take him on an excursion to run errands or eat dinner out. We get him into a fresh diaper, change his clothes to so he is warm and bundled up, pack the diaper bag, and then we strap him into his seat.

We put him in his car seat, all nice and snug, and put the Milk Snob over the car seat as a protector from the wind, the rain, and away we go.

But today when I loaded him up, I looked down and realized this car seat and milk snob view port are practically teleportation devices for him. Every time he goes anywhere, he is loaded into this little unit, plugged into the carseat base, and away we go on an excursion and the next thing he knows we have arrived at our destination. Whether it is a 5 min drive or 45 min drive. He doesn’t see or comprehend there is much in between or if there are other ways of traveling. He only knows this carseat teleports him somewhere new.

How often do I do the same thing? How often do I miss the larger perspective in my life where I am accompanied by ritual and routine. I only have my small portion of perspective into the situation. Whether I am frustrated by the process for how TSA works, disappointed by the way my democracy functions, or angered by the amount of taxes I have to pay. I cannot forget how little of the picture I really see.

Where are you losing perspective? Where do you see much less of the picture than you should based on your reaction? Do you know enough about the system to be upset about it? How can you learn more where your perspective falls short?

Viewing,

–JT

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Circumstantial Disabilities

I was recently helping a friend with a project and noticed how he talked about a circumstance in his life. He talked about his circumstances as if there is no way he could overcome them. He was trapped and saw no way out. I started thinking about my own life and how I can often feel trapped, especially when I am not trapped at all.

I started thinking about opportunity and future. I started to reflect on what I can do to get out of the harder circumstances I have, not to say they are significant on an absolute scale. In the midst of the conversation, the key phrase in my mind, the one thing really sticking with me, was:

My circumstances are not a disability.

I have been found waiting for a miracle at times to cure my circumstances. I knew immediately how insane I was. I shared my realization with my friend and he accepted it and the midst of the conversation and continued the conversation onward.

However, even now the statement sticks with me. My circumstances do not control me. I can change them. I can get out of bad circumstances. My circumstances can also upgrade or degrade based on my decisions.

What circumstances are holding you back? Where do you need to make better decisions to improve your circumstances? Who is going to help you make these better decisions?

Enabled not disabled,

–JT

Revolution Eyes

Other peoples’ issues are easy to fix. Formulaic really. I can answer them and help decipher the next step almost too easily. Actually, too easily indeed. I can not, however, deal with my own issues very well.

I generally feel like I look at my own issues and see nothing but haze, fog, and confusion. It is almost as if I am at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and I cannot see my own hand in front of my face. Truly, unnerving to say the least.

I recently unearthed a tool to use for these situations. Detatchment. Not a way to live life. Simply, a way to stop, take a breath, reassess, and then move forward. I have been using this tool more and more. I struggle with getting too connected. I am too willing to get emotionally tied up in the outcome of my work. I will get tied up not only mentally but more dangerously emotionally. I will lock into the outcome as if my life depended on it.

99.99 % of the time…
…my life does not depend on the outcome.

All it takes is a breath. Really, almost a few moments. Count to five then look at my problem again through new eyes. Revolution–eyesed. [#pungroan].

After taking these moments, I am able to comprehend my issue, step away from the problem, assess the facts (as best as I can see them. I am still only one person.) And I can move forward with confidence and clarity as to what will make the best outcome. Most importantly, I can talk myself down off a ledge and not make an angry mistake.

What happens when you get too tied into the outcome of your problems? How can you better engage your problems? How can you better interface with people who are causing you problems?

Detatching,

–JT

Scaling

Putting issues on a scale has brought me much perspective in life. I have been able to see what is important and what is not important. I have been able to see when to act, react, and instigate. I have not always done a great job at analyzing life on this scale. I have been trying…that is pretty much the same right!? Not so much. 

But the moments in my life I have put things into perspective for myself have made an immense difference when I was over or under acting in a situation.

For instance, when I start to look at life through a scale of 1 to 10, I can see the valuable moments versus the valueless moments. When I am upset about something and I throw it on this scale, I can see how upset I should really be. Are my actions truly to scale of the situation. Am I about to flip a table at a restaurant because I have not had my iced tea refilled in the last ten minutes? 

Am I totally downplaying the importance of family and ignoring my wife in order to watch another episode of Hell on Wheels?

Usually when I get this scale out of whack it is because I am out of whack. When I see myself react to situations out of proportion, I know something else is wrong. Something else is misaligned in my life. Usually whatever I am under or overreacting about is not the real issue, there is something else behind the issue for me. However, using this metric I am able to see how I should be acting and reacting to situations.

How do you tell whether or not you have a piston misfiring? How often do you overreact or under react to situations? How would your actions & reactions change if you put everything into a relative scale of 1 to 10?

Scaling,

–JT