Tomorrow, with a group that meets every other week, I will be talking about what kinds of decisions we want to be able to make in the future.
To be able to decide where to live or what to do during the day or who to help, and how, will be part of the discussion, I imagine.
It is one thing to decide which books to read, another to decide who to hire, and another still to decide strategy for your organization And these differences speak to much of what makes work, and so life, compelling or not, an adventure or a grind.
The goal of our conversation will be to help each of us takes steps towards finding positions and modes where we can make the kinds of decisions we wish to make. And given those convening, I am sure the time will be fruitful.
For such topics, I sometimes invoke the image of a magic wand charged to 90%. The value of the image is that while no, you can’t go back in time or suddenly become a different person, you can become CEO or, say, become a musician or have all the money you need. Because such things do happen without full-on incantation.
The value of the wand image, as I hope makes sense, is to put in front of yourself what may seem impossible but what is not, finially, just a fantasy.
During a long stretch of solitude today, I’ve been thinking about the last 10%.
I would not mind being able to choose to return to those relationships done in by my hubris or selfishness or stupidity.
Not that there are so many of these, exactly, but to have just one fewer would be worth a kingdom.
And yet for some things there is no magic to conjure, only regret to stew in.
The magic is that you learn to live with it.