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Change starts with curiosity
Maybe it’s like a sibling or child watching their parent’s argue. But they’re both right, both wrong, sometimes even saying the same thing but just coming from a different place.
I don’t necessarily agree with every position, but I can see given someone’s experiences, life, emotions, highs and lows, adversity, triumphs, sadness, happiness, darkest moments, fears, desires how someone could come to think what they do. I just think we’re more connected than we think we are. I think we are the best of who we are but maybe also the converse of that might be true too?
I think some conflict and confrontation is useful, necessary even. These might be one of things I can takeaway or learn to develop. When and how to use conflict and confrontation as a friction point for balance and harmony? Maybe there’s a way to do this without the walls and defensiveness to go up right away when conflict and confrontation arises. Or maybe the point isn’t for walls to come down and find common ground but to make a stand and show conviction to others that might not have the voice.
A thought or persuasion might be lifelong or it might just be a moment in someone’s life. We’re always changing, growing, not a blip on timeline but a culmination of our journey not just from what was but also what is yet to come.
I’ve been on the other side of positions, discussions, debates, arguments. Done with the expectation of wanting to change the other person’s mind or wanting to be right. But as I’ve learned being curious, earnestly wanting to understand what the other person is thinking, feeling or coming from, seems to put us in a better place then when we started after the conversation.
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No-man’s land
We all see things so differently. Everyone is so unique. We can’t all be right. We can’t all be wrong. Different desires. Different values. Different approaches, judgments. Aren’t we all just trying to do what we think to know is best. Is it right or wrong? Maybe it’s good, better, best.
Often times, I find myself able to see both sides of a position. I can understand why, even down to the feelings and personal attachments. When I listen to a someone talk about a position I don’t initially understand or agree with, my first inclination is curiosity. I don’t start with the premise that they’re wrong. I start asking the question “why” and “how”.
Starting with the expectation of changing someone’s mind or perspective is a difficult posture. Maybe that’s what I’m here to learn. But so far what I’ve come to is the only real expectation I can have for myself is to offer empathy and the intentionality of being available and trying to understand.
But what am I missing here? The change? ‘Does being able to see both sides, make it feel like finding myself not having a side. Admittedly, maybe I am often times in “no-man’s land”, almost like not having an opinion. When people are looking for assertions, I might be making accommodations. Maybe it’s my desire to seek balance and harmony, avoid conflict and confrontation. Trying to synthesize people’s thoughts, ideas and intentions into the best case scenario.
I feel myself questioning this line of curiosity, what is the exploration, discovery? Finding stakes in an assertion. Not just seeing both sides of the position but having a stake in one position… bringing it all back to decisions, goals, stakes.
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Decisions without stakes are not decisions at all
“Be the change you want to create.” Decisions, making decisions but not really making decisions with risk, stakes. Real decisions with stakes. What’s really at the heart of these decisions. What decisions move toward making the change that I want to be?
The change I’m trying to make, or maybe the momentum I’m trying to generate. That the extra detail, work, conviction to align the intention and the output to the narrowest gap, almost seamless is worth it. The goal might be actual tangible deliverables. But the expectations might be subjective, qualitative. The stakes are building something that people love and connect with, between the inner walls of the product to the audience it seeks to engage.
But the process isn’t defined, the outcome or success is not guaranteed. This is the change to create within myself. Lean in, trust intuition, have conviction, build process. Make a decision with stakes, deliver the expectations.
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Goals, where response and reward converge
If I were a chef, I’d cook what I wanted cook, using my creativity, aesthetics, flavor palette and hope somebody would like it. That’s not really a goal. While others might cook what they knew people wanted and satisfy their needs. Goals seem more easily derived from this mindset. Maybe I feel it’s too much of a sacrifice? Maybe I don’t want to lose my voice? Maybe I’m judging myself unable to meet the need; scared of “failure”, “rejection”?
But maybe if I were a chef, the more holistic way to look at it… starting from mindset of understanding, empathizing other’s needs/desires but I’m bringing who I am to fulfill that need. As in I can bring together the recipes, dishes, flavors the only way I know how. That in itself is the uniqueness, creativity, generosity; bringing my whole self and connecting to what I do to serve others.
But maybe that’s what goals are, where people meet in the response and reward… where the response is the reward and the reward is the response.
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Goals give me low-key anxiety
What makes me hesitant to state obvious, clear goals. Results should be important, they are important. But expectations seem to rob me of being present and the experience. Goals are a clear measurement, they are a definition of success, a North Star to provide a path forward and define results, requiring recalibration and adjustments.
Define the results, value them with emphasis and importance. Fully invest the process and effort to the outcome. Engage in the feedback loop of reaction and response. Get thrown into the waves of success and disappointment.
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Shipping to Delivering
Shipping to delivering. Once it’s produced, created, built. Once it’s “shipped”. Where is it being shipped. Where is it going. Where is it landing. Who wants it. Who needs it. Who was asking for it. This is delivery. To complete the loop, complete the process of creation. Creating something for the benefit of others. Creating something to bring people together. Creating something to connect. A robust, healthy creation process will have already thought of who this is for before the shipping, before the inventing, before the idea. This is the creativity mesh point, creating something for specificity, for someone, a group, a need, a desire, want, creating it with the intuition only you can bring, uniqueness, individuality, voice, aesthetic. That is the connectivity.
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Inventing to Shipping
Inventing to shipping, from the plans, process, schematics and details. Creating the thing, building it, making it real, physical, tangible. This is the journey from idea to inventing, inventing to shipping. The materials. The builders. The process in place. The design in function. Outputting the idea into an actual physical thing. This is when you can see how closely you get what you thought of in your head to what you can actually create. How close is it. How perfect was the idea. Was it as good as you thought it would be. If not why. If so why.