Core Principles
I’m interested in core principles. While I like to think there’s been a fundamental collection of same through my life, there hasn’t. I’ve changed and at this point I expect to continue to do so. With that in mind, I want to note what values I care about today.
Cynicism is lazy. I want to catch myself when I slap a simple, dismissive label on people and concepts. When I increase my awareness of same, I want to use those as flags to start exploring and understanding the people and concepts because clearly they differ from me and there must be something valuable to be gained by building that understanding.
Empathy FTW. This may be redundant, or an extension, or the results of the previous value. I’m not entirely sure. I have not deeply explored this one, just that values such as empathy, compassion, and inclusiveness are critical to me and for now this is a reasonable label for this bucket of concepts.
Done is fine. Another bucket for several ideas. Get something in front of people to be able to watch them use it. From a product point of view it leads to deeper understanding (I’m detecting a theme today) of the problem space and the people who are looking for solutions. “Fine” is a deliberately chosen word, as fine is very rarely enough. But it’s fine. It’s enough and we can build on it and continue doing more. Things won’t ever be perfect but if we can live with where things are then we can focus on things that aren’t fine. It’s also a temporary state. What’s fine for now probably won’t be in the future.
Only you can change. Other people will change, circumstances will change, the world around us will change. But how we deal with that external chaos is entirely our choice. Making the right choices is extremely difficult, but if something happens outside your control the only thing you can exercise control over is your reaction to it. If I’m ever able to do so consistently, I feel like I’ll win life.
These are clearly not well-established notions but for right now these are some things I’m working on and exploring.
