Author: Franz Malten Buemann

And how soon is never?

Most organizations are fundamentally incapable of planning ten years out. When a company promises to be carbon neutral by 2030, they’re actually saying that they may never be.

That’s because almost all the pressures on them are short-term pressures. And it doesn’t help that few people expect to be in the same job or even at the same company then. So it’s easier to simply describe something in the distant future and then “go back to work” where work means obsessing about the short term.

Of course, it’s not just companies that do this. Individuals do too, and companies are simply groups of people.

Changing our definition of ‘now’ and ‘later’ is a powerful competitive advantage.

School and work push us to avoid real dreams. Dreamers are dangerous, impatient and unwilling to tolerate the status quo. Existing systems would prefer we simply fit in.

The dreams we need to teach are the dreams of self-reliance and generosity. The only way for us to move forward is to encourage and amplify the work of people who are willing to learn, to see and to commit to making things better.

It turns out that reading and writing are the cornerstones of this practice, now more than ever. These are the two skills most likely to produce exponential results.

The effective writer can see their ideas spread to a hundred people overnight, or perhaps a million. Writing is still the bedrock tool we use to codify and share ideas, and it forces us to organize our thoughts.

But we can’t say it until we see it, which requires the commitment to reading and understanding, combined with the guts to dream and to lead.

Find the others, see the problem, and then decide to do something about it.

Yesterday I went to a fast-food restaurant near closing hours (around half an hour before closing time) and ordered something on the menu using the self-service kiosk, but I didn’t know the restaurant didn’t have that option (Usually, unavailable options would be faded in the kiosk screen, but for the options I selected, they weren’t faded.) Then, an employee came and told me that they ran out of that option. So I said I was open to another option and ordered that instead. Then, when it came to eating for here or to go, I pressed for here on the kiosk, but then the same employee came and told me that the for here option wasn’t available either. So I said I would be open for to-go and chose that. Shortly after, I asked if the restaurant offered free refills for lemonade (some places do, so I thought the same case might apply). However, the employee said the restaurant didn’t offer free refills for lemonade. So I said OK and drank without saying a word. However, after that, the same employee gave me a dirty look, which honestly, I felt confused. I wondered if I did something wrong because I didn’t know how the restaurant works or whether the employee was being oversensitive. It was only my second time coming to the restaurant and definitely my first time ordering from the restaurant in a situation like this. I wasn’t a frequent customer so I wasn’t used to how things were in the restaurant. I tried my best to read the rules and menu, but sometimes I didn’t know the options were unavailable because nothing in the kiosk or menu in the restaurant indicated the options I selected were unavailable. Thus, I would like to know: am I in the wrong, is the restaurant and employee in the wrong, both, or neither? Why? submitted by /u/Massive_Area4312 [link] [comments]

What’s a car for? Transportation. With reliability. Status. A transaction with the bank. A transaction with the dealer. Your relationship with the neighbors. A statement about your style and belief in design. Your sense of quality. A statement about how you walk on this planet.

What’s a job for? A way to pay the bills. How you spend your day. What you talk about at parties. A sense of purpose. A chance to dream. The people you connect with. Something to be proud of. A statement of self-worth and dignity. The opportunity to make a difference, or a chance to regularly lower your status.

What’s a wedding for? A ceremony to memorialize a long-term commitment. A statement of status. An extension of historic male dominance. A chance to make a statement against the patrimony. Playing within the rules and standards of a community. Deliberately challenging those rules. A statement of mutual self-esteem. A party, perhaps the biggest you will ever host. Scarcity, deciding who comes and who doesn’t, and abundance, using resources to extend the boundaries.

What’s a house for? A safe place to live. An investment. A transaction with a broker. A statement to family and friends. An investment. A monthly payment. An expression of personal taste and style.

As our resources grow, so does the power of the stories we tell ourselves.