A celebrity dies and you see loads of brands tweet a tribute. And by “tribute” I mean the company has gone “let’s jump on this and see if we can get any coverage off it”.
Perhaps it was always the case and I’ve only started noticing it. Or perhaps it’s a byproduct of the social media era. Either way it doesn’t make the brand look good. It makes them appear like vultures.
No doubt it’s possible to do right. I just don’t remember ever seeing one done right.
If you don’t complete things you can’t claim them as done.
You can start all the projects you want but if you don’t finish them you’ve done nothing. If you’re working on a side project don’t move on to that new idea you’ve just had until you finish what you’re doing. Otherwise it’s incomplete.
If you’re going for a five mile run but only run four miles, it’s incomplete. You don’t get to tick it off your list of things to do. If you’re trying not to break the chain, you’ve failed, the task is incomplete and the chain is broken.
Don’t just start stuff, finish them.
Opportunity is important. It’s a version of luck. You need to be ready when opportunity shows up.
Opportunity is not a one time visitor. It shows up all the time. When it does it makes an offer. An offer you can take or reject. Sometimes you should drop everything and take the offer. Other times you should let the offer go because taking it would cause more harm than good to your life.
You need to learn to recognise which to take and which to leave.
Opportunity shows up and makes an offer. A random offer. It might be something you want, or not. But you don’t have to accept that system. You can influence the offers. You can make it so you get more offers of the things you want. You can make your own opportunities. Just like you can make your own luck.
If you want something you have to work hard for it. That way when opportunity shows up you have a better chance of being offered the deal you want. Sure, you could not work towards something at all and hope to get randomly picked. Hard work, though, hard work rigs it in your favour.
Every now and again there’s a news story about someone accusing someone else of an anti x bias. Where x could be pretty much anything but is usually something related to religion, politics, or other topics with strongly held opinions.
People with a strongly held view are very sensitive about it. It is often so strongly held that it is part of that person’s identity.
Being sensitive about a topic means a person accusing others of an anti x bias do so because x is their thing and they notice any slight against it. Other topics, say l, m, n, o, and p may also have been discussed in the same manner but the person is unable to see that. Or they see any criticism of x as an attack on x and can’t take it or accept it.
There are situations where the anti x bias is real and not imagined, though I find it is usually imagined.
Last month, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, was released to lots of bad reviews. For most movies that would be that. But BvS is a comic book movie, based on DC comics, with a huge fan base. Some of these fans accused the reviewers of being bought off, by rival comic book studio, Marvel, to give the movie a bad review. Very strongly held opinions. Very sensitive about those opinions.
No doubt any of us are capable of being sensitive about the opinions we hold. But if we find ourselves accusing others of a bias against something we hold dear, perhaps we should first determine if it is ourselves being sensitive. Not an easy task when we see something as part of who we are.
None of us work in isolation. Each of us builds on the work of those that came before. The work we complete will be built on by those that follow.
We are a chain. Each link important to the strength of the whole.
On the day, in the moment, it may seem like we stand alone, unsupported. We don’t. There may be no one with us but we are not alone. We have the support of the fullness of history. The tools we use are there because the past has provided them. The knowledge we have is there because the past discovered it.
No piece of work is less important than another. Today’s work may not have the scale of yesterday’s but without it tomorrow’s work could not happen. Without it tomorrow’s work could only build on the work of yesterday. Without it tomorrow’s work would be a step behind. Or perhaps today’s work is at the largest scale. But don’t forget that without yesterday, today would not be possible.
We are a chain, with each of us a link. Don’t break the chain.