Questions and Actions

Last Updated on Sunday, 6 December 2009 11:46 Written by Steve Sunday, 6 December 2009 11:44

Jack Ricchiuto has an amazing essay on working beyond goals and plans. His articulation of opportunistic action in a dynamic world resonates with me at the deepest levels. I wrote earlier about how to act now in service of long-term goals, and I find that Jack has summed up everything I was trying to say much more eloquently. Here’s a passage I love, but please go read the entire essay. Thanks to Jodie for passing this on!

New questions are more powerful than plans because they cause us to learn what’s possible rather than presume what’s possible. Learning is the opposite of presumption. Questions lead us to discover clear and passionate vision and notice changes in our world.

Plans create a version of the world that becomes increasingly inaccurate and invalid in a dynamic world. Questions on the other hand make us both more proactive and agile than we would be trying to follow static plans in dynamic environments. They cause us to follow the actual changing landscape of the world rather than a static version of it.

New actions are more powerful than goals because they cause us to do whatever we can to realize our vision of what we want to create as possible. When we commit to any action, we commit to it as long as it’s realizing our vision of what we want to see possible.

The expansiveness of action is the opposite of the constraint of plans. When we act on our new actions, we often discover that it is possible to find ways to realize our questions beyond the limits defined by our plans. Actions are never predefined in the ways that plans predefine us.

Movement

Last Updated on Friday, 25 December 2009 09:49 Written by Steve Thursday, 3 December 2009 09:22

Ideas are not enough for me.
Cast me in with the tinkers, the makers, the creators of things.
Revel in all their dented, half-functional glory!
For it is only through action that this world will change.

By making, by trying, we move–we learn
what works and what does not.
On this kinetic path lies the world we make
and remake daily, never satisfied,
always moving.