In a building under construction, an entry door is often in place before the steps that lead to it.

So it is in life: we sometimes catch sight of opportunities before we can take advantage of them.

Look for doors. Be vigilant. And when you can, be step builders.

When we discover something that works well, we don’t like to change. Consumer products offer good examples: pens, golf balls, cleaning supplies. If there’s one we like, it becomes our go-to. We choose the same kind again and again.

But when something doesn’t work, we’re eager to try new options. We’ll test and experiment until we find a good solution.

This is a good way to operate, but it can be problematic when we think something works, and it doesn’t.

Whether it’s our personal habits, our business practices, or our way of navigating the world — sometimes we repeat behaviors that didn’t work well the first time, and probably won’t work well the next time. We repeat our approach whether it’s in our best interest or not.

We’re all creatures of habit. From time to time, it’s wise to examine those habits to see if they’re really working for us.

And if they’re not, it’s time for a change.

In a recent workout at a hotel gym, I put my wedding band in an interior pocket of my clothes to save it from getting scratched.

Two minutes into my exercises, I checked to make sure the ring was still there.

It was not.

Surely it had fallen beside the bench? Or under a nearby machine? Or rolled farther away?

When those searches were unsuccessful, I began to panic. I began to look in places where it seemed unreasonable for the ring to have fallen. I looked in illogical places too.

And of course, I checked the small pocket at least three more times.

After five minutes, beneath my breath, I asked, “Why is this happening to me?”

Another few minutes later, I found it. The ring had fallen into the liner of my clothing. I was exceptionally relieved.

But then I reflected upon my previous thought: Why is this happening to me?

It wasn’t happening to me. It was happening, yes. But there were no forces behind it. The world was not conspiring against me. There was no meaning behind the temporary loss, the frantic search, or the joyous discovery.

It was all just happening.

Sometimes, we try to form a narrative around events when there is none.

But even though the world isn’t “teaching us a lesson” in these moments … we can still learn from any situation.

Learning requires the student, but not always the teacher.

It might just be a sixty-second introduction. Or a ninety-second anthem. Maybe a two-minute reading.

The brevity of your time in the spotlight should not diminish the intensity of your rehearsal.

Practice. Evaluate. Adjust. Improve.

Not in spite of its brevity, but perhaps because of it.

Rise to the occasion. Make it just right. Do it justice.

A glimmer of magic — yours to create.

By themselves, outcomes cannot be perfect.
By themselves, circumstances cannot be perfect.
By themselves, situations cannot be perfect.

But when met with your attitude, a kind of perfection can be found.
But when met with your posture, a kind of perfection can be found.
But when met with your creativity, your resilience, your intention, your perspective, your patience, your wisdom …

… a beauty that rhymes with perfection can be found.

You can have many. So many that you cannot keep them all in mind. So many that you forget about some. So many that some fall into disrepair.

Or you can have just a few, carefully tended. Minded. Loved.

Quantity risks coming at the expense of care.

We can be ambitious collectors or we can be loving caretakers.

The choice is ours.

At times, the thing to do is to sit quietly. Not to wrestle with the questions, but to patiently allow the answers to emerge.

But other times, the silence is a dead end. Our minds find a circular track where the wheels are unable to break free from their well-worn grooves.

In those moments, it’s wise to seek counsel.

Trusted advisors and friends are not burdened in the same way we are. They’re not anchored to the thought patterns that have kept us from moving forward. They can often think more nimbly because for them, the questions are new. Even without offering solutions, they can ask clarifying questions that unlock new ways of looking problems.

It’s simple, but some answers are found by asking.

In a brief exchange, my children and I witnessed a stranger losing his temper over a trivial matter.

Moments like these offer opportunities to offer advice about communication, self-control, courtesy, and conflict resolution. Empathy too.

It can be done either way, but it’s usually more comfortable when you can be the teacher, rather than the subject of the lesson.

I went for a run in an unfamiliar town. Since the streets were new to me, I kept to a simple route that I ran twice. (This way, I wouldn’t get lost.)

The first time around, an unusual house captured my attention. I was fascinated by all the interesting objects on the property.

The second time around, however, I was well beyond that same house before I realized I had passed it.

It was a memorable lesson. When our attention is elsewhere, we can overlook the most marvelous things — even things we’ve noticed before.

Our proximity to a thing changes our understanding of it.

From far away, something may look simple. But when we experience it up close, first-hand, it may be quite complex.

Far in the future, a situation may seem impossible to navigate. But when the moment arrives, we may handle it with relative ease.

When watching someone perform a task, the activity may seem boring. But when we adopt the work ourselves, we may find it to be fascinating.

Depending on our proximity, our judgement can have a significant margin of error.

H/T Jason

The thing about waves … is that they come in waves.

Sometimes they’re gentle. Sometimes aggressive.

If you’re standing on the shoreline, what you see in front of you will be different than what’s to your left or right.

And if you move to the left or right, those waves can easily be different by the time you get there.

In many aspects, waves are a metaphor for the things we experience in life.

Love, kindness, forgiveness. They’re often like a cool breeze on a sweltering day: they can hardly be seen except for the way they feel.

Sweet and welcome.

At a recent hotel stay, the staff was particularly kind. Almost everyone was cheery and eager to help. Simple questions were answered with what seemed like delight.

I mentioned this to the front desk as I checked out. The attendant smiled genuinely and said, “Thank you! That’s so nice to hear. Yeah: we have a really great work environment.”

Beautiful. Her reply had nothing to do with corporate mission or employee training. It was about the culture.

A good work environment makes doing good work all the easier.

At a museum’s busy entrance, visitors passed through a low-sensitivity metal detector. The device had bright blue lights, and it flanked the left and right side of a wide passage.

A uniformed guard, over and over, shouted the phrase, “If I don’t stop you, keep walking. If I don’t stop you, keep walking!”

The guard was clearly annoyed that people kept stopping in front of the metal detector, awaiting instructions and causing backups.

Unfortunately, most people have been conditioned to wait. At places where security is tight, metal detectors are single-use only. You wait your turn. You wait until the agent beckons you. If you walk through too early, you’re scolded and told to wait.

The museum guard was fighting years of conditioning.

Since the system wasn’t intended to prompt visitors to pause, a better design would have blended the detection elements with the architecture or kept them hidden.

People naturally do what they’ve learned to do. Good design encourages the appropriate behavior.

The careful preparations we make before we leave a place …
… often center around what we want to find when we return.

Sometimes our best work feels effortless. Everything falls into place and we’ve barely broken a sweat.

Other times, we work strenuously for what ends up being an average outcome.

The quality of our input doesn’t always guarantee the quality of our output. But putting in the work is how we give ourselves a shot. We give our best effort again and again … and every so often, the results are brilliant.

And every so often is enough.

Our search results can depend a lot on how we begin; the first constraint informs all that follows.

For instance, does your search for a house begin with the name of a city, or a certain number of bedrooms?

Does your search for a car begin with a manufacturer, or a certain feature?

Does your search for a partner begin with a physical attribute, or a certain worldview?

We’re always filtering — but that primary filter plays a huge role.

Agriculture wasn’t the result of innovations in hunting and gathering. Better chasing and foraging didn’t prompt thoughts of domestication.

It would have been away from those activities — during quiet times of observation, contemplation, and curiosity — when concepts of farming and trial cultivation were born.

When we stop running, then we can begin to imagine.

Sometimes it’s away from the work, when we sit still, that our ideas begin to blossom.

Overheard at the office: “The day’s almost over. I’ll just look at it tomorrow.”

That’s a fine strategy in many situations. The end of the day is not necessarily a good time to start something you can’t finish.

But while it’s an acceptable strategy, it’s not an effective ongoing posture. “Almost over” can also mean “not done yet.”

What do you do when you only have a few hours left in a day?

What do you do when you only have a few weeks left in a season?

What do you do when you only have a few years left in a lifetime?

We’re always running out of time. But that last bit can be just as fulfilling as the first. And it doesn’t have to be steeped in productivity. It might be an intentionally peaceful rest after a hard-fought day.

Not “how much you’re loved” — just “how much you love.”

(My father offered this kind revision to my post. Thanks for the re-framing, Dad. You’re definitely right. Love you.)