For the bulk of my career, I have been asked to solve tough problems and difficult challenges. Many people believe the problems they face both at home and at work are very unique. Experience teaches that most problems are fairly common. Problems are similar to invention and innovation. Often times in human history, many people develop or invent the same things around the same time. If people are creating, inventing, or innovating the same things at the same time, the problems they face are also common.
In my field, I am pretty good at adjacent innovation. I mean to say, I can see a use for a kitchen knife as a screwdriver. I also look to be practical in my work and I look for outcomes vs bullshit work. Bullshit work is work we do for no practical reason.
I have fallen into the trap at times throughout my career of mistaking bullshit work for real work. The reason for this is because I believed that people want answers to questions, they ask. What I have come to understand is that some people just want to ask questions indefinitely and they want some part of an answer, but they don’t want the whole answer for whatever reason they have personally.
It only took me all these years to realize that some people actually don’t want the answer to a question they are asking.
No Complaints Only Clarity
The work I do calls for a lot of reading.
I can’t read too much at one time as I lose my focus and attention. My mind starts to drift, and I start thinking about things tied to what I just read. I have to go back and read things a few times or break things down to smaller chunks. I can get hung up on something or have something I define as an epiphany.
Some of what I have read becomes sticky forever. It never leaves me; it becomes a part of the way I think and stays indefinitely. Some say, “you are what you eat.” I guess “we are what we read as well.”
I am sitting down, reading a book, I have this moment, a realization, of course I want to share it. It is an answer to a question that I didn’t even think to ask. The answer then forces me to ask the question. I can see the pieces come together and I am like “what the heck just happened here?”
My mind is spinning with all the possibilities. All the things we can do, all the positive opportunities, and answers to questions that can help some or all of us in some way. Then it hits me, I can only do so much with what I’ve learned. I recently saw this quote online which struck me as appropriate.
“The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing“1-Herodotus.
When I was younger, this would have bothered me more than it does now. What I have come to understand is that we as a body want “willful ignorance.” It leads me to the understanding that even if some of us seek answers openly, we may not genuinely want an answer. For those of us who study, read, learn, and gain insight, we may suffer the consequence of learning.
I will continue to learn and do what I do but I am also choosing to spend my time carefully on things and people that I can have a positive outcome and effect on.
The reason I am putting this in words on post is because some of YOU do the same thing I do. One of my close friends gets frustrated when she is asked a question only to be IGNORED. Yes, she was hired to provide the answers but the people she works with do NOT want the answers. They want to meet about the questions over and again. What is 2+2? It is four. No .. I said that wrong. What is two plus two? It is 4. No, you see, you put a number not a word. We have to go back and evaluate and understand what is going on here and meet about it. First, we need to understand why we are asking the question of 2+2. Does anyone know why someone is asking? It is what we like to call “crazy town” but this “crazy town” is not a small town in the middle of nowhere. It is everywhere.
Crazy town isn’t new. It’s been around so long there are crazy cities and crazy countries. Does NOT make sense. What I am saying in this post is to realize when you’ve entered something crazy and actively choose not to engage.
If people don’t want your knowledge or learnings, find others that do want to learn. Find people that want to talk and advance themselves.
Build your community, help one other person which in turn may help the world.
You DO You .. Enjoy the day!