chaos vacations

creating focus through crisis

There’s nothing quite as relaxing as a crisis. There’s nothing quite as liberating as having life turned upside down. A crisis sharpens focus. A crisis makes all of our time and effort count.

This summer I dealt with a water issue. I dealt with a lot of flooding. This required focused, exhausting effort. I could barely keep up with the foolsletter. I didn’t stop generating ideas.

Now that the crisis has passed, I have time available. The tasks are getting organized. I’m getting organized and with it, overwhelmed yet again. There are so may options, so many threads of what’s next that it’s easy to stay still.¹ Perhaps after a crisis, rest is important. How though, do you regain focus on complex projects after taking a break?

A crisis is a great break from the big work, the real problems we face. Common fools are tossed from crisis to crisis. Peculiar fools seem to engineer crisis for themselves unawares. They function at high frequencies. Buzzing all the time they have the bliss of being …