Author: Andrea Grassi

I still remember the day when one of my friends told me how surprised he was about one coworker who was facing stress at work.

By stress, I mean the stress that comes by making hard choices while not having enough power.
He noted that, for him, this would have been a no-brainer. He would just choose a way and deal with the consequences, while my coworker was consumed by the choice itself.

When I first listened to this, it very much made sense. They’re different people, it’s normal for them to have different ways to handle such scenarios.
But now that I think of it again, I can see that there’s something more we should consider: Past vs Present.

My friend was saying this from a different perspective, role, and more importantly: experience.
His struggles happened 20 years ago, personal struggles that impacted the way he enjoyed life and family. Those struggles were as real as the ones from my coworker, and they forged his spirit to what he was at that time.
My coworker, on the other hand, was going through similar struggles at that time, and still hadn’t figured out how to get out of them.

As with the plethora of things we learn from life, we might end up take some of our learnings from granted, as if they were part of ourselves from the beginning. 
Some of them weren’t, we acquired them, and we don’t know which struggles people are facing. Something that seems easy to us might be a real challenge for others.

Sometimes life asks you to be there, be present, and do nothing. To watch the world unfold, clear up, and evolve.

We always want to control things, to change them, to be part of them, but from time to time we are asked to be spectators, watchers passing by while the world  revolve.

I’m unusual.
I tell people what I like about them, I like being sentimental and sharing with the people around me (friends, but even coworkers) when something touches my heart.

I laugh, I enjoy seeing a smile in the people around me.
When I’m in a remote meeting, my “Hello” is often loud, happy, energetic.
I don’t do this to gain attention, in fact, I might also lose some respect from some people, but I do it because I think life is interesting, it has so many good things, and staying together, talking, discussing, is something I love.

I don’t think I’m “strange”. But when I think about conforming myself to the society, I think we should keep our spirit intact, to enjoy our ride in work and life. To play, laugh, work hard, and enjoy the whole journey.

Questions are powerful. They can unlock new opportunities or allow digging deeper onto a subject.
They allow you to understand a problem deeper.

The problem with questions is that we don’t make them. We make assumptions, we suppose how things work.
We don’t make questions to avoid looking stupid, when, in fact, they could make us smarter.
Yes, there are dumb questions, but who cares? We don’t know if a question will actually be dumb until we ask it.

Also, even the most dumb question can be a gateway to understand a problem better.
I always refer to the “Yellow pen example”.
Say one friend has a yellow pen, and you start with a terrible, dumb question: “What is that?”
“It’s a yellow pen, can’t you see it?”

Well, even if the question was dumb, not very specific, you can still move forward and ask “Oh nice, and how does it work? What kind of ink it uses? Can it be pinned onto paper? Is it refillable?”
These are a few questions you can ask, and we’re just starting.

The thing is, the more questions you ask, the more questions you’ll have in mind.
That’s why questions are beautiful because they’re a fountain of ideas.

I think most of us, at one point, though “I won’t be like them” when thinking about our parents.

Traits we didn’t like, behaviors we didn’t accept. Then one day we decided that no, we will be different than them. We will be better.

Will we be, though?

I’ve seen many people say the same and still behave very similarly as their parents, and I’m wondering: when do we lose track of this intention? When our lives overshadow our experiences and we forget about them?