Category: culture

Precaution and preoccupation

FabrizioLeave a comment

In certain circumstances, when much is at stake, when it’s a matter of life or death, when you are trying to contain a problem that could have grim repercussion, overreacting can be the right choice. It’s about protecting something that is dear, and it is ok to be overly precautious.

Being preoccupied, on the other hand, is rarely the better thing to do. It’s a distraction to keep us busy, a way to delay important decisions, a focus that engulfs our mind and that we do not need.

Precaution is action that keeps the problem at bay. Preoccupation is debate that makes the problem big enough so that nothing else exists.

Precaution is (it should be) the language of governments, authority, leadership. Preoccupation is the language of media, populism and masses.

Choose carefully which one to utilize as you go about this difficult time.

About the others

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Increasingly, the change we seek and want to bring about, the change to things we do not like or find unfair, is not a revolution led by a strong leader.

Examples such as #metoo and #blacklivesmatter show that change happens nowadays because of more or less spontaneous movements that find coordination and reach in the masses.

Change is less scary when it is not imposed, when it is shared, when it spreads horizontally.

As you go about your need for change, think: “how can I make it about the others?”.

What we are not

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What we are not helps define what we are.

Yet certainly, that cannot end there. This is particularly true when we compete, when we try to influence, when we run against something that is already established.

We need to differentiate, and that cannot be done by merely saying “not-the-other”. The more you let this message run, the more steam you are transferring to your adversary’s engine.

Building movements that matter is hard job because they require self-reflection, deep knowledge of the playing field and story building.

All the rest is a shortcut, and short is the breath that will sustain it.

Redesigning life

FabrizioLeave a comment

If your life is designed in such a way that over time, consistently, you can’t:

  • take a number of days off to recover from a flu
  • take a number of days off to prevent the spreading of a disease
  • take one hour or two to recover from a bad headache or go for a walk
  • cancel a business trip
  • reschedule a meeting
  • go offline for a period of time without fearing something will be wrong when you are back
  • ignore an email or a call that comes out of your normal business hours

Then it is perhaps time to consider redesigning your life.

Not everything

FabrizioLeave a comment

Not everything is urgent. Not everything is important. Not everything is newsworthy, and not everything that is newsworthy is a tragedy. Not everything requires your attention. Not everything demands that you change your plans. Not everything is a debate in search of a winner. Not everything is worth your time.

When we lose the ability to look at things with perspective, the world becomes flat.