Every writer has all of them. 26 in most Western languages.
But no writer knows all the words.
That’s the gap where creativity, effort and possibility lie–between the universal letters and the unlimited words. This is an analogy for arenas as diverse as sports and commerce.
Sometimes, we work on a project where our competitors have access to more letters than we do. It’s unlikely you’ll win that competition.
But if you start out with the same letters as everyone else, don’t spend a lot of time admiring your letters. It’s the words that matter.
If it’s just the right amount of necessary kindness, it’s not really kindness. It’s pleasantness.
If the people in our circle begin to experience behavior that’s kinder than necessary, the expectations for what’s necessary will ratchet forward, making everything more pleasant.
And… being kind is a lovely way to spend your day.
[Compare this to an alternative: “be as selfish as you can get away with.” Hardly worth going down that path.]
If you want to drink more herbal tea, get a hot water dispenser that keeps it handy and on tap.
On the other hand, if you want to watch less television, disconnect the TV after every viewing session.
Convenience leads to consumption.
We all make them from time to time.
You might not know what you need to know. This is where experience is created.
You might have an identity that pushes you to make those choices. If you’re determined to act like the person you have assumed you are, the choices come with the role.
Or, you might prioritize short-term benefits over the long-term costs of a bad choice. In this sense, the difference between a good choice and a bad one is simply which timeframe we’re considering.
Built into the idea of ‘choice’ is the agency and freedom to choose. But we waste that power every time we fail to realize we’re making a choice.
And there are two common reasons for this: we don’t believe we have the freedom to choose, or we’re not clear about what we’re trying to accomplish in the first place.
TINA!
This is what Margaret Thatcher said about her draconian free market policies.
It’s an easy thing to tell ourselves about compliance to any dominant system. But it’s incomplete.
The complete sentence is, “There is no alternative unless we’re prepared to endure short-term discomfort as we push back against the dominant system.”
So the real question isn’t, “what’s the alternative?”
The question is: “Can we create the conditions to cause this system to change enough for us to do the long-term work we’re proud of?”
Systems don’t like to be disrupted. Persistent systems push us to believe TINA.
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