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Zeddig remembered the courtyard of the Hanged Man the night she and Ley broke up – no, “broke up” wasn’t the right terms – the night their six months’ war grew too hot. Dreamdust addicts sprawled on couches, mewling in their stupor as dreams and bass pulsed from the dance hall upstairs. She reached for Ley’s arm, but Ley always could slide away when she wanted. “She didn’t leave us to die.” Just me. And not to die: just to live my life without her. “She just left.”
Ruin of Angels, Max Gladstone
“Those doubting his grand visions have been proved wrong in the past. In 1981 he founded SoftBank to distribute personal-computer software in Tokyo with two part-time employees. On the first day the diminutive Mr Son stood on two apple cartons and announced to those befuddled workers that in five years the firm would have $75m in sales and be number one. They thought “this guy must be crazy”, Mr Son later told the Harvard Business Review, and quit the same day. But Mr Son’s drive and ambition saw SoftBank eventually distributing 80% of PC software in Japan.”
“The impact of Masayoshi Son’s $100bn tech fund will be profound.” – The Economist
“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself …” – Carl Jung
“A century ago cars were seized upon as a solution to the drawbacks of horses, which were clogging city streets with manure. The broader social consequences of cars, both good and bad, were entirely unforeseen. Today the danger is that AVS will be treated merely as a technological solution to the problems associated with cars and that, once again, the wider impacts will be overlooked. AVS have the potential to transform physical transport as radically as packet-switching transformed the delivery of data. But as with the internet, realising their benefits is a matter of politics as well as technology. AVS offer a chance to forge a new and better trade-off between personal mobility and social impact—but only if the lesson of the horseless carriage is applied to the era of the driverless car.”
“Who is Behind the Wheel,” The Economist, March 3, 2018
This article, and the articles that follow analyze my thoughts on what I am calling my “end game.” You can read more about this concept here.
In the article entitled “Mind the Gap,” I wrote about the importance of having both self and situational awareness when it comes to managing relationships. Since it is difficult to provide explicit guidance across all personalities and situations, a better alternative is to rely upon a set of relationship principles.
The absence of principles is akin to traveling without a map. This approach may be suitable for local exploration, but arguably irresponsible when traveling in unfamiliar territory (at least if you wish to reach a specific destination). Principles allow one to navigate successfully independently of the situation.
Let’s build an initial set by posing the following questions:
Do I feel comfortable with this person?
Is the relationship balanced?
Is the relationship moving forward?
These translate into the following three criterion: comfort, balance, and strength, and are neutral enough where they can be easily applied in both professional and personal contexts. They also follow a natural order (i.e., relationships which make one uncomfortable should probably not move forward by default).
Lastly, since change is ever present, these questions need to be continuously asked. Each assessment should inform whether the relationship is on track or requires recalibration, containment, or termination.
“It echoes one of the general paradoxes of hitchhiking, which is also a paradox of romance: The less desperate and needy you seem, the more likely you are to be picked up, and thus the people who probably need a ride the most are the least likely to get one.”
The World’s Best Hitchhiker on the Secrets of His Success, Wes Enzinna, The New York Times
“To escape the uncomfortable barrage of complaints leveled against them, women like Rhonda learn to protect themselves by hiding (Solden, 2005). They avoid addressing painful mistakes by deflecting attention away from themselves. They cover their tracks with a smile, but behind the scenes they are working frantically to uphold an illusion of perfection. Women with ADHD are resourceful and creative; more often than not, they find a way to covertly triumph over their latest SNAFU. Buoyed by their success, they expand their camouflage to conceal not only their executive function weaknesses, but their true personalities.”
The Distracted Couple, Edited by Larry Maucieri, PhD and Jon Carlson, PsyD, EdD
This article, and the articles that follow analyze my thoughts on what I am calling my “end game.” You can read more about this concept here.
In my last post, I spoke about two positions within a “relationship spectrum,” one based on complete openness, and the other, extreme isolation. Understanding and managing what lies between can enable one to make better decisions when interacting with different people, all of whom have unique perspectives and ways of operating.
You may be asking: “But what does this have to do with the original end game? Isn’t the end game about critical thinking and advancement?”
I’ve learned that very close and fulfilling relationships can act as a source of fuel towards greater intellectual and creative achievement; their benefits are multifold. In contrast, challenging relationships can interfere with one’s ability to concentrate and ultimately advance.
At their worst, the ending of close relationships can result in severe depression and anxiety, the combination of which can cease all effort for an extended timeframe. Without an appropriate course correction, this decreased activity can begin to permeate into other areas.
This can be a major problem.
I used to believe that the fluid nature of relationships made it naturally resistant to any form of management. I no longer believe this. Relationships involving some type of mental disorder require considerable patience, understanding, and need to be carefully managed. Relationships that do not harbor such disorders also require a certain degree of management, although to a lesser degree.
While self-awareness is invaluable, situational awareness is what really matters here. Thus, the ability to remain mobile is largely dependent upon the relationships one finds him or herself in, and how each relationship should be managed, or ultimately contained (more about this later).
Given the various relationship types, personalities, and situations that blend the two, it is difficult to share specific examples. Books like “How to Deal with Difficult People” provide this type of guidance fairly well in both a lighthearted yet grounded way.
In my next post I’ll talk about an initial set of relationship principles that can enable one to effortlessly “mind the gap” without letting emotions run the show.
“Doba’s response to Gabriela’s concern about what he’d do in a crisis, if the closest land was the bottom, was to say there will be no crisis. He did not say this because he’s naïve. He said it because he has reimagined the concept of crisis, just as he has reimagined the concept of suffering. A crisis, in Doba’s worldview, is an opportunity for triumph. So Doba moves toward the crisis, just as he moves toward the suffering. By choosing it, he casts himself in the role of hero, not victim. He gives himself control.”
Why he Kayaked Across the Atlantic at 70 (for the third time), Elizabeth Weil, The New York Times
This article, and the articles that follow analyze my thoughts on what I am calling my “end game.” You can read more about this concept here.
In my Connectedness post, I highlighted the importance of staying reasonably connected with others when one’s primary energy is focused on challenging work. Maintaining a balance between the two contexts can improve the quality of both.
Unfortunately, not every connection will result in a positive experience or outcome. Hence, it is very important to consider the use of “early warning systems” and boundaries to enable one to continue to stay reasonably connected regardless of the participant “mix.”
Thus, it’s worth exploring another spectrum, one that I have traveled along and gained experience from. Let’s call this the “relationship spectrum.”
At one end of this spectrum is naive openness, where one’s relationship with others places no restriction on the types of people or the relationships themselves. All advice and opinions are weighted equally regardless of source, and there is little-to-no “post-processing” done before acting upon such advice. All behaviors are tolerated.
At the far end of this spectrum is complete isolation and containment. Here, all relationships are discouraged, and the concept of “post-processing” has little to no meaning given that advice is neither sought nor recognized. All behavior is absent.
These are extreme positions.
Without an appropriate understanding or management of this spectrum, one can find themselves needlessly vacillating. This pattern of behavior, if left unchecked, can result in a cascade of poor decisions, the outcome of which can be difficult to unwind.
In my next post, I’ll talk about “minding the gap” via a comprehensive understanding of what lies between these two positions, and a starting point for defining a set of operating principles to maintain perspective and a positive outlook.