Your 2022 Review. Shaping Chaos, Issue 3

Your 2022 Review: Wakes, Ripples, Karma

Everything we do, everything we say, creates some kind of effect, however small. At every moment we have the option to build stability, stir up chaos, to move towards some form of creation or dismantling. We move through the world leaving imprints of our actions, our speech.

If we called a friend at the right moment, we left a memory, an influence—something of ourselves was transferred and remains in their experience. If we ran a meeting explaining, clearly and with care, why a difficult decision was made and how the fallout would be handled, we left another ripple of our values, of ourselves, in those who attended (and if that is a prosaic example, well I’m writing this in the context of a newsletter for professionals who run and attend meetings, among many other things). If we disagreed with a coworker, strongly and directly, but with great care and respect, we helped build a model of understanding which might endure, moving outwards in their conversations with another colleague, and another, continuing into their life and work, and ours. The values, the behavior, the intentions we brought to that disagreement live on far beyond the conversation itself.

And conversely, of course: badly handled confrontations, sloppy or panicked reactions to the economic changes of this year, casual cruelty in disagreement or job changes—these things leave their marks behind. We leave damage.

The thousands who left Twitter just before Thanksgiving will remember the moment when their laptops were shut off, without any human connection, as a blow. Many will still be in distress. At a deep level they will take this as proof, again, that humans are cruel and crude and stupid. They will carry this with them into their next jobs, their careers, their families. To believe this of the people around us makes the world a smaller, nastier place.

And, yes, we can agree, very likely, that there were too many people at Twitter. We are all playing a game with simple rules of profit, growth and expectation. The game pushes us to make decisions that affect peoples’ lives. It does not mandate that we treat people with casual disregard. How we make and communicate those decisions are choices, and they matter.

Our intentions matter. We, humans, are exquisitely designed the intuit the intentions of others. We start to understand this before our first birthday. We are always, at a deep level, alert to how the people around us are being driven—even if they themselves don't really know. In the mindfulness tradition, the motivation for an action determines the karmic effect: an action driven by frustration produces more frustration, cruelty builds cruelty, care builds care. Taking an action driven by understanding and respect, however hard, will be seen, will leave a living impression of that understanding and respect, will live on as a value in those who were affected.

We can leave a belief in the people around us that humans, for all their many faults, for all their strange chemical variabilities, are trying, are worthy, are striving for something better.

When we look back at a year we tend to look back and think about what we did. Raised a funding round, ran a 10K, learned a language, beat a health scare, had a child. We think in terms of outcomes, items checked off a list, goals achieved (or not). If we looked over our shoulder at this year with the right kind of eyes, we might see, instead, our wake, perhaps powerful, perhaps a barely perceptable set of ripples—the effects of our actions widening out into the sea of the world. We could see our actions and the intentions of our actions moving away from us into the people, and the world, around us.

The world is a sum of all these wakes, a turbulence of the combining effects of our actions, our speech, our intentions. We get to choose our contribution.

So. When you look at 2022, what waves did you leave behind, widening out into the world? What values did you leave in the people you met, worked with, loved? What do they understand about human beings based on what you did this year, what you said and what you intended?

And how will 2023 be different?

Notes

"Warping the fabric of the universe"—Old School Punch Line

A helpful corrective to uselessly grandiose strategic statements: "Unleashing creativity for the human race". That kind of thing. They feel good, and have no value in creating clarity and direction. Asking yourselves "are we attempting to warp the fabric of the universe??" maybe be helpful next time you're in front of the white board. (A more entertaining alternative to "are we boiling the ocean?").

"we are the living dead" and "we're about to strike a goldmine"—Every pre PMF Founder/Executive ever

Finding Product Market Fit is an exercise in managing expectations. It's an anxious time, following a faint outline of a path in a fog. Our brains can kick up some unhelpful thoughts: "We are the living dead" is probably wrong. "We're about to strike a goldmine" is a little more helpful, because motivating, and may be true, but probably not this week and maybe not this or quarter, or, yes, year. Be level in your expectations and celebrate when it happens.

"is it true, is it necessary, is it kind?"—Socrates? Buddha? (apparently not)

Whatever the origin, this is an incredibly useful set of "gates" to check whether you should speak, particularly in high-emotion settings. Write it on a sticky note and have it around. Glance at it when you feel the emotions rising. (And notice that "kind" does not necessarily mean "soft" or indirect).

Links

Karen Catlin, excellent coach and author of the Better Allies book and newsletter, with the first tweet about the Whole Twitter Mess that made me snort my latte out of my nose.

Sixteen Life Learnings from The Marginalian. A useful list to contemplate going into a new year. Broader and more nuanced than the usual "meditate and get more sunshine" style :-)   Starts with: "Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind".

Asking the wrong questions. Benedict Evans from 2017 on what we get right (rockets!) and what we get wrong (all the pilots are men) in predicting the future. Useful to contemplate now as we head into the AI future.