Friends of mine once tried to coin the term consicion, a cross between concise and precision. Although I thought the concept deserved merit, the flow of the word was problematic. The very fact that this came up at all was that all of my friends were frantically working to change the world for the better. As community organizers, we spent nearly one hundred hours per month , talking to people and trying to make the most sense during relatively brief intervals as possible. Like plants being adapted to feed on sunshine, we were honing our skills as communicators to feed on the awareness of others.
By the time we are adults, we are adept at decision-making, even our bad decisions are made with aplomb and dignity. Imagine just for a moment that each and every one of our decisions up 'til now amounted to absolutely nothing, imagine having a clean slate with no physical, mental, spiritual or emotional baggage to prop up, take a stand for, or defend. Imagine staying in that zone for your next thousand decisions. The older we become, the more quickly we can perform many tasks, but some of the sacrifice that we make for speed is related to how profoundly we consider any, or all of our actions.
I have been caught up in a whirlwind of late, too busy to really even keep up with the news. Rather than regretting it, I seem to thrive on this deep focus on decision-making, uninfluenced by outside forces or even, for that matter my own proclivities, predilections and presuppositions. My most recent thousand decisions were all focused on one thing, the renovation of our house. In a home that has been around for well over 100 years, there are not only hundreds of characters who have passed through the doors, but an unbroken history, complete with a large portion of bad decisions incorporated into the very bones of the house. Re-using and repurposing as much as possible, we were able to do a great deal using very few resources. The prime directives in every decision was will it make the house last for a second and third hundred years? Will it make it comfortable for Nancy and I? What are we but agents of change for the next hundred years and what are our efforts if not for both this moment and all that follow?
By the time we are adults, we are adept at decision-making, even our bad decisions are made with aplomb and dignity. Imagine just for a moment that each and every one of our decisions up 'til now amounted to absolutely nothing, imagine having a clean slate with no physical, mental, spiritual or emotional baggage to prop up, take a stand for, or defend. Imagine staying in that zone for your next thousand decisions. The older we become, the more quickly we can perform many tasks, but some of the sacrifice that we make for speed is related to how profoundly we consider any, or all of our actions.
I have been caught up in a whirlwind of late, too busy to really even keep up with the news. Rather than regretting it, I seem to thrive on this deep focus on decision-making, uninfluenced by outside forces or even, for that matter my own proclivities, predilections and presuppositions. My most recent thousand decisions were all focused on one thing, the renovation of our house. In a home that has been around for well over 100 years, there are not only hundreds of characters who have passed through the doors, but an unbroken history, complete with a large portion of bad decisions incorporated into the very bones of the house. Re-using and repurposing as much as possible, we were able to do a great deal using very few resources. The prime directives in every decision was will it make the house last for a second and third hundred years? Will it make it comfortable for Nancy and I? What are we but agents of change for the next hundred years and what are our efforts if not for both this moment and all that follow?
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