When I was in high-school, one of my classmates asked the question “What is love? I mean, how do you know when you’ve got it?” I remember fumbling my way through the ‘right’ answer (love is a decision more than a feeling, etc.), and predictably I got an exasperated sigh and a brush-off. The issue has resurfaced recently in a very close-to-home sort of way which I’m not prepared to get into. But let me just add some more perspective that age has offered.

The actual right answer is that love is a feeling. And a decision. In fact it’s a decision to maintain the feeling just as much as it is to maintain the commitment in its absence.

There is no way that you can separate feeling from love. It’s inherent. Love will break your heart. And when your heart breaks, well, that’s how you know you’ve got it.

But when your love is only causing you pain, it’s time to get out.

Oh man, where do I start? A ton of emotional energy and time is invested into developing and wordsmithing this stuff, but I’ve never seen it do anything appreciable. Really, I’m not exaggerating: not a single thing.

Humans don’t get this stuff by reading, or even writing it. They just don’t. They get it by doing it. Just like everything else in life. But especially mission/vision clauses have somehow been bestowed with an in-built expectation that they are feasible surrogates for experience.

Core values also have a perceived capacity to solve problems and unite people. Their reality is a lot more problematic. No mission statement works if it’s too prescriptive, that is to say, focused on what we should be doing. Lofty, ambitious statements are apt to be divisive, because people have the hardest time agreeing on the future. Rather, they work best if they are descriptive, defining who we are right now. So they succeed at a goal that is obvious, pointless and which has a very short lifespan.

Every time out, when the statement is crafted it will either get filed, or put into a unvisited portion of a website, or at the very highest level of visibility, posted on a wall to collect highly visible dust. Again, totally pointless. Words simply do not carry the life that is invested in them.

So why is there such heightened angst surrounding mission, vision and core values? Why are things held up until they exist? No mission statement ever started anything. Everything starts with action. You can refine what you’re doing, and what you’re not doing as you go, and you can describe it when it’s moving. I can certainly help with that. But if you’re doing it right, so can anyone else. Perhaps it’s just better to do and worry about the words after.

I’ve had an urge to start asking questions of people. Random, out-of-the-blue questions put to random, out-of-the-blue people. I’m starting here.

What is the most bizarre compliment you’ve ever received?

It could be unintended, misconstrued, ill-timed, awkward, back-handed or just ‘off’. Drop me a comment.

I saw this on People of the Second Chance (POTSC) blog — one of the newer sites I’m RSSing. It’s put out by Honda, which is actually surprising. Firstly that any corporation would make this, and secondly that it would be an Asian one, with its strong concern about ‘face’. (Probably a good thing it wasn’t Toyota, though — it wouldn’t quite come off the same way with all their recent problems.) I will say this: watching it has made me want to try. Again.

In a previous post I tried to define failure. I think this video puts it in its proper place: “It’s a by-product of trying to push the envelope.” I just love that!

One of the ways that I define maturity is being able to see from someone else’s perspective. But I’m not sure that ever happens. In communications, there’s this truism that you can’t experience a feeling that you don’t have a vocabulary to describe. I don’t quite buy that – I think there’s a lot that we live through that is beyond our words. However, I do think it’s virtually impossible to share that experience, and have others participate in a meaningful way in it if you can’t describe it. (Take that as a challenge to grow your vocabulary, not permission to give up the effort!)

Egocentrism is a developmental stage in children. It describes a period when a child is unable to comprehend anything beyond the self. It’s the young age where if a child can’t see a toy, it just ceases to exist. I kind of think that we never quite grow out of that. I’ve heard college professors argue for their chosen discipline to be the centre of existence: “Economics is everything!” I see it reinforced time and again with the people that I rub shoulders with. Each at some level views their own personalities and expectations as universal – whether saliently or subtly. We need to constantly, consistently and deeply question these assumptions. We do great violence in the world when we don’t. Even our most generous and noble actions are motivated in a way that is in a word, selfish. No matter how hard you try on your own, you just can’t escape it.

In his otherwise light-hearted song, People Should Smile More, Newton Faulkner sings the jarring lyric: “I can’t change the world / ‘Cause tryin’ to make a difference makes things worse.” I’ve mulled over that. It rings true. Because I don’t think we’re supposed to have the grandiose desire to change the world. If that is our desire, it can’t help but to be in effort make it match our own personalities. If the whole world looked like me, it would be running off in all directions and it’d be really bad at economics. (Wait, maybe it does look like me!)

No two people desire the exact same goal(s). And that’s okay. Honestly! Even in a company full of paid employees, or a church, or a social group, or an online community, or a marriage or whatever. It’s totally okay. Of course we need to manage how diverse we allow the end goals to be, and define the shape and scope of them together. If they’re totally incompatible, that will become pretty obvious, pretty quick. But a multiplicity of goals can co-exist coherently surprisingly well. That is, if they’re openly discussed, submitted to the greater good, and simply allowed to. You just need to know that you can’t see them right away, and can’t fully understand them, so you need to keep asking the important questions.

Your unique perspective is critically important. Just like everyone else’s.