Author: MAÔ

If everyone was efficient all the time, they would be nothing different about about anyone.

No diversity. No uniqueness. Just pure efficiency, over and over and over again.

And where’s the fun in that?

Reminded recently that work takes only as long as is needed to complete.

Sometimes we’ll drag it out, adding task after task.

In the end, though, how much of it is unnecessary?

I gave up overachieving, yet still find myself saying yes to myriad things. Time and again, it’s easy to say yes. Especially when a certain structure is lacking.

Not that it’s bad to say yes. Just make sure it’s something you’re aligned with.

Otherwise, you’re just going along to someone else’s alignment.

Rules, all rules, are arbitrary.

They get set up, taken down, broken when in place, and mean something different from one set of people to the next.

Figure out what the rules mean to you, and whether they even matter.

As we’ve moved into the era of photography, social media, and connectivity, we’ve moved away from poetry.

It was the verbal expression of a snapshot of time. A beautiful, or heart-rending, or even common moment.

Now, we have a way to experience the moment of someone else, and poetry is consumed less. But it is still out there, doing it’s best to capture the ephemeral.

Over the past few weeks, I have heard a couple dozen ideas.

All people have ideas.

What we need are more people that can materialize those ideas.

Watched a movie recently (Sidekicks, 1992). In it, the character played by Mako calls something a thief – a thing that steals from us when we rely on it.

And I began thinking of the smart phone. If it’s the first thing we grab in the morning, what is it stealing from us?

It’s messy in my head. Like, there’s a lot.

I scribbled down the thoughts that were taking up space – the main ones, not the superfluous ones, the ones on the periphery – and I filled up three pages.

Walking the tight rope between overoptimization and letting go, it’s probably just easier to fall.

Quite frequently, I think, “Start from zero.”

What would wiping the slate clean even look like?

It seems the more you expect (or hope for) an outcome, the more possibility you have to be disappointed.

I told this to someone recently, that the projects I’m heading up, I’m not expectant of a result. The work speaks for itself, good or bad.

And then it passes. Maybe something will come of it – ROI, recognition, whatever. But, if it doesn’t…

The work was still done. And I think that can be enough in most situations, if not all.

Recently, I was introduced to koans. Reintroduced, really, but this time with some increased understanding.

And oddly, a lot of things have fallen (somewhat) into place.

We can understand a great deal in just a single of observation. Smaller things are reflective of the larger.

I’m still unsure how best to incorporate this, but it is something that I am much more considerate of.