Charles Starrett

Logo

Blog, links, and…

Culture consultant & social tech teacher/facilitator at SoulCo & Northeastern University. He/Him. Dad, Harvard and NEC alum, visual thinker, dabbler in ukulele, electronic music, 한국어, and TTRPGs.

RSS

Where are we?

Often when we get lost on our way to going somewhere we make the mistake of trying to keep going. We try to remember which direction our destination is in and course-correct over and over again until we realize that we’re becoming more-and-more lost.

The best thing we can do whenever we feel lost, uncertain, or unclear is to stop. Stop, pause, and let our goal-oriented mind that is fixated on getting to the destination settle down until we can take a clear look around.

Sometimes this means being with difficult emotions. We may feel like a failure because we took a wrong turn, or didn’t plan our route well enough. We may feel angry that we were given bad advice or the wrong map. We may feel anxious about what the consequences could be for where we ended up, or for not reaching our destination (yet).

Once we allow ourselves to feel those feelings, to let them be seen and heard, and then let them pass away (which some scientists say takes only about 20 seconds if we don’t keep feeding them), then we can take a look around. What do we see? What do we notice? What can we learn about where we are?

Because it doesn’t matter how clear we may be about our goal. If we don’t know where we’re starting from, we’ll never figure out which way we need to go.

19 August 2022

Latest Posts