I have learned this about myself. If I am put into chaos, I will start to create order and make sense of it. Eventually either the chaos *becomes* order, or the chaos is meant to be chaos, and I find just enough pattern in the chaos to be able to mostly float along the tops of the rapids.
“Perhaps we are born knowing the tales of our grandmothers and all their ancestral kin continually run in our blood repeating them endlessly, and the shock they give us when we first bear them is not of surprise but of recognition.”
― P.L. Travers, About the Sleeping Beauty
I cannot believe how fast this year is suddenly moving. I feel like last week was just the first week of the month, and now here we are at the end!
Granted, I guess in that month, things turned around and now I've got a brain full of information management and trying to figure out a job from basically scratch and quarter-prepared processes. It's been keeping me busy!
As a result, I've been thinking a lot about how uncomfortable not knowing things is for me. I want to be doing everything that needs to be done. And I want it done right. And for it to be the right thing to do. I know. Fussy in that way. (Except when I kind of don't care which does occasionally happen).
The thing is, no one can really tell me pretty much anything - because they don't really know either. Which is both great and sort of worrying. But, I have learned this about myself. If I am put into chaos, I will start to create order and make sense of it. Eventually either the chaos *becomes* order, or the chaos is meant to be chaos, and I find just enough pattern in the chaos to be able to mostly float along the tops of the rapids. Mostly. Every now and again, some whitewater or a rogue wave gets me. But that's part of life.
Someone called me Mary Poppins the other day, it's sort of apt, both generally & in this particular situation, having sort of blown in as quickly as the wind changing direction. Hmm. Actually, I think that might be useful. Not so much with having to manage Jane and Michael, but just the matter of fact, super direct, while also meeting all requirements for social propriety, and navigating the most ridiculous, and also fun, situations with brilliant uniqueness. Those books were really brilliant. No so much the movie, which is a delight in its own way but doesn't really have anywhere the depth of the books. I still re-read all the Mary Poppins books periodically. P.L. Travers was an amazing story teller. It's probably past time for me to re-read What the Bee Knows too - in all my spare reading time... My stack is growing by the week, it seems!
Another thing I've been thinking about is how complex the details are. I look at the project I'm working on (human insights research content management & the associated system), and on the surface it appears really straightforward... and then a tiny question appears, and then all of a sudden (to switch childrens' books metaphors), you're down the rabbit hole with Alice. Boom. Which is interesting, but sometimes we have tangents on tangents on tangents and forget what we were trying to get answered in the first place. Soon I will know all and it will be fine. Or I'll have recreated it in a mutually shared image... And it will be fine. :)
I got a big piece of puzzle this week though. Part of the issue has been that this program has been managed across no less than four project management systems, and several sharepoint sites. Of course we can't manage anything, it's everywhere! I finally was shown what I thought was an incidental project tracking location, that turned out to be pivotal and a whole bunch of stuff dropped into place. I went from having about seven things assigned to me, to having nearly 300 - though some of that was because a predecessor was *way* too granular with creating work items to a ridonk degree. More that I can fix! Just link to the spreadsheet instead of entering every row from the spreadsheet and tada!
So. Yeah. And that's just *one* of the places my brain has been. It's been sort of the Red Queen's race, from Through The Looking Glass, really...
"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
RIGHT?
And speaking of which, it's time for me to double my fast-as-I-can.
With a spoon full of sugar, a piece of cake, an elixir of your choosing, and love & curiosity,
--Susan