Happy Easter!
Some random musings once more on this lovely spring day of hope and renewal.
As I’m currently reading “Continuous Discovery Habits” by Teresa Torres, thanks to the recommendation of Matthew Roche’s latest blog post (highly recommend this blog especially if you are in the techy space, and even if you’re not), I started thinking about Lent, fasting, Easter versus outputs and outcomes.
Typically, there are items given up during lent, but what does it really mean? How does giving up coffee make one a better person? Not to say that it doesn’t, but it’s important to give this some more thought as to what impact it can have for the positive. Perhaps the money towards coffee was used towards charitable purposes instead. While this can be good, it is also a short-term proposition as normal habits are resumed after the Lenten season is over. Lenten promises would be better served should their impact continue past the 40 days. Give up negative habits such as gossip, and maybe by the end of the 40 days it becomes second nature. Also, let’s point out that the 40 days Lenten fast in fact do not include Sundays! My mind was a bit blown when I came across this some years ago. I do think it’s quite helpful in developing good habits knowing that you could break up the 40 days into 6 day increments if needed.
Similar concepts exist in Girl Scouts – what is the difference between community service and take action? Community service projects are essential where girls learn how to use their time and resources to temporarily improve a situation, ie. park clean up, food drive. Take Action projects on the other hand have the added feature of having sustainable solutions, while community service projects can just be philanthropic actions.
In the work environment, we have outputs and outcomes – a main topic in Teresa Torres’ book. It’s important to understand that outputs in themselves are not enough. What did those outputs positively and sustainably enable? If an objective equals bonus, that objective should have a sustainable long-term positive effect.
And as part of the joy of continuous discoveries, today I came across this painting by Swiss artist Eugène Burnand.
