Getting Down to Business

Serious people do serious work. That is the work that must be done as we struggle forward. Through whatever trial we encounter, we must slog on to find footing, find sustainable routines, and survive another day.


For some this work is horrendous. Think emergency room personnel. Think ambulance EMT crews. Think nursing and tech staff in ERs, ORs, ICUs, and recovery rooms. Constantly on duty and alert to ever changing conditions and circumstances. Always 100% on; little rest or respite breaks.


Teachers instructing kids (all ages) electronically from remote sites. Not a practiced method, but learning. Thinking every step of the way. Encountering student questions and pulling answers out of thin air. Sharing results with other students and bringing everyone along on the learning journey.


Same with farmers working fields, planting crops, hoping for ready markets for crops harvested months from now. What market mechanism will handle the trade? What distribution network will carry the crop to end users? How will the crop perform on the dining table or in manufacturing process?


Retailers without walls or borders. How do they sell inventory to those who need the product? How will buyers know and understand the product, why it is better than an alternative, or if the price is fair, or quality top notch? How then are sold goods transported to the new owner? What networks for delivery are available?


Financial transactions have been going electronic and remote for the past two decades; remote transactions are pretty much the norm; still, how does the bank or credit union know it is me? What serves as a signature these days? Can we leap to a new standard that keeps money flowing digitally?


And jobs. Where are they? Where do I work from? How do I learn new tasks and career requirements as change mounts to ever different norms? What is the product again? You know, the one my job supports? Is it a real product with weight, size and materiality? Or is it a service? Or is my work a service that sells, buys, makes or transports the material goods?


So many questions. Always questions. Ever have they been.


What we do with the questions is actually the work to be done. With questions, the new is present. Knowing it and understanding it is the work. Vitality is demanded to process all of this. In the end, it is handled. It is work performed and accomplished.


We learned how to respond to the new all our life long. School, family, social settings, skills, sports, clothing, appearance, food, health – all of what life entails. Careers formed on schedule as we departed institutions of education, as we learned to take steps as adults into the unknown future. We each have done this. We all must.


And so, what is unknown right this instant becomes our work. We engage it. We do it.


Life goes on. We learn to smile. Tell jokes. Find love. Make babies. Continue the human race. All in the embrace of change.


We are becoming. Always becoming.


April 29, 2020