Author: Andrea Grassi

Last night I dreamed a strange dream, there were like 6-8 people in a room and we were coached by a friend.

She split us in group of two people and asked us to mix.

While doing so she also mixed some liquids (she was mixing liquid CO2 with something else, but never mind that).

She said “Some things work best together, some not, we should be able to take the right things and leave the wrong ones”.

In the dream I was looking at the impossible drop of CO2 put on a spoon and moved into another liquid, not reacting at all, reaction was good, but was not happening.

When I woke up today I realized that “selecting the right things to keep” is not something we do often. Our characters and behaviors are defined by a global mix that works and when we act we use a complex mix of knowledge, charisma, wording choices and so on. 

We don’t look at our actions by selecting the single element to keep but mostly as a “this worked, this didn’t work”, without diving into the reasoning.

Also, we (or at least I) forget that we can learn a lot from others, even if we dislike a big chunk of them,  because we can select the good things they’re doing and learn from them.

This is an iterative process similar to the the “1% better every day” you can use for improve the conversion on a website, but works on a different scale and level.

It’s obvious we can’t improve 1% every day, but if we ever commit to trying new things and letting go of the wrong one we might be finally up to something.

During the pandemic I often wore a mask even if it was not required and some times I wore it even if I knew that mask wouldn’t protect me at all (since it wasn’t a FFP2).

Why wear it at all?

I thought a lot about it and thought how our body send messages to other people with the small nuances in our face in the way we move and so on.

The reasoning for my choice was to send a message: I care.

To me it was never about the rules, it was mostly about people.

I knew that my actions and my carelessness might impact other people lives so I choose to send a message. That I value protecting others.

I’m sure that some people might not agree with this stance but I can say this: While I was walking some people put on their masks. My action reminded them in some ways of the times we were living in a subtle and hopefully kind manner.

I never asked anyone to wear it, but always led with my personal choice and example and the goal to me was never to protect myself since I’m also in an age where there are less downsides than usual but instead to protect others and show them that I cared for them.

After the first year of the pandemic we saw society split as a whole on the topic of masks, vaccines and so on. We thought that the divisive element was related to the vaccines but now, with a world conflict in Ukraine we can see this was not the case.

Every time I read some comments on the topic we are always splitted and I constantly see hatred on both sides.

It’s the medium and our prejudices that create the split in the society. It’s the fact that we are not spending enough time understanding different perspectives and keeping an open mind, it’s about less hatred and more caring.

Looking back at my actions I’m sure some might’ve hated my choice, but I do hope some will see them as a way of caring even though they’re on a difference stance then me.

A friend of mine always talks about this entrepreneur as if people somewhat misinterpreted him.

As if his story and life were often made more interesting, but, after all, he’s just a normal man.

He told this story once to my mother-in-law and from then on the story, for her, didn’t change.

How could after all she would be able to change it if she doesn’t get more information, new updates or so on?

This is the problem with personal stories, they don’t get updated.

My mother-in-law will always talk about this entrepreneur the same way, even if years have passed, even if he changed entirely.

This happens to all of us, because if the story sticks in our memory then we will tell the story again and again, probably because it’s a nice story to tell after all.

But that story might be false now.

It might be even be false in the past as far as we know, but it can be more than ever false now.

Should we then stop telling stories? No, but we should take into account time. 

As time passes a story becomes less and less reliable and unless we’re talking about a daily topic we encounter frequently then we’re better off telling that this might not be true anymore.

What’s in a job role? What does a job role means to you?

A role is your work. Your daily job, what you do for 8 hours a day.

For many people a role defines themselves. In fact it’s a way to define not only your status but also your competences and skill.

If you are an architect you obviously know many topics on architecture, professionally. But that doesn’t take away the option to know other things too.

A job role means also money. How much you earn, but it also mean power in some ways.

In some cases power is something that makes you valuable. If you have power over others, then you have a good job, because you’re important.

Which leads to the “Important” thing.

Stay with me for a second while we digress a little bit.

Let’s say you’re capable of 3 things professionally and one of them has an higher “rank status” across peers, let’s say you choose to move “down” to one of the remaining twos.

In this wording and the much needed quotes lies part of our social culture of “Importance”.

See, when we talk about importance we’re not talking about how you contribute to the work, to the role, to the project or product.

We’re not saying which skills you bring to the table.

What we’re valuing when we talk about importance, “stepping down” and so on, is status, and status if saw this way is ego-directed.

This also makes some jobs less “interesting” because they *seem* to lower your status.

But a job should be valued in your contribution, in how it lets you pursue your life, in how it allows you to express profoundly and with enthusiasm.

We should talk about our job roles as a thing that defines what we add to the table, not who we are, because even though who we are is influenced by the work we do daily at the end of the day life is what happens outside your job.