Let’s assume, the moment I step out of the coffee shop I’m sitting in, I get hit by a bus. Considering it’s a busy four-way crossing with not a single (working) pedestrian light in sight, that’s actually not too far fetched. What would I want to have posted on this blog if that were indeed to happen?
It’s not a terribly unusual train of thought for me. Every time I set foot in an elevator, I wonder what it would be like if it suddenly it went into free fall and, the worst case scenario, exactly the moment that I’ve set one foot inside. I also think about what would happen if it were to get stuck, which is why I tend to go to the restroom before risking having my full bladder and the rest of me sliced in half.
In fact this ‘Last Post’ thought experiment is just an attempt at a management summary – or an elevator pitch if you so will – of what I’m trying to communicate with this blog. But why blog in the first place?
One way you can try to motivate introverted cynics to have conversations with other people is to tell them that every person they meet knows something that they don’t. If we assume that this little piece of know-how everyone is holding is unique, then when they die, it dies with them. In most cases that piece of know-how might not be a viable solution to global poverty, but it could very well be a new, fail safe elevator design.
If we knew what our own unique idea was, it would be easy to pass it on. Or build a company around it. But the problem is, we don’t. That limits us to making educated guesses. Chronicling my very own attempts at these guesses is the main purpose of this blog.
At this point I have a few leads that I’d love to explore more.
- Overcoming my internal or external obstacles was only ever possible when I had two things going for me: An inspirational goal and a process I believed in.
- A lot of the goals I used to have were goals I felt I ought to strive for rather than goals I consciously decided were worthwhile pursuing. Learning to tell the two apart freed up a tremendous amount of time and attention.
- Accepting small things going wrong, sometimes painfully so, enabled me to dedicate time and attention to having a chance at making the big things happen.
- My successes in dealing with a lack of self-control were much easier accomplished by removing the need for it from my environment than relying on my ability to improve it.
- I’m more limited by attention than time. With unlimited attention, I could study Thai every moment I spend in a bus or in an elevator. With unlimited time, I still wouldn’t feel like it.
- I never regretted fulfilling my dreams, be it self-employment, retirement or traveling on a trial basis before investing years of my life into them. It either resulted in the necessary confidence in them or changed my mind.
- There is no god. I hope I don’t regret this one a few minutes from now.
I hope I’ll get to rephrase the above bullet points into something more coherent and link them to full-fledged blog posts in the weeks to come.
Just in case though, I’ll hit ‘publish’ first and start editing and proof-reading after I crossed the street.