»A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.« For me as a sailor, that’s more than just a great quote. It’s almost a truism. But as the son of a civil servant, raised on stability and security, in a family where permanent jobs and predictable career paths were seen as the sensible way to do things, it’s also something I didn’t live by for a long time.
Until recently, companies at least had to make the same mistakes independently. One organization might overvalue prestigious universities. Another might mistake confidence for competence. A third might quietly screen out unconventional careers. Their judgments were often flawed. But they were flawed in different ways.
His legs were shaking before he even went down into the next squat. He stood in front of me at the wall ball station with that look people get when they are no longer really deciding anything. They are just trying to keep the body moving for one more rep, then one more, then somehow another. He picked up the ball, dropped down, came back up, threw, caught it. I watched the movement and called it straight away: no rep. Not because he missed the target. Because he had not gone low enough.
It usually happens in a very ordinary moment. Someone asks what you do. At dinner. On a train. Between two meetings. You answer almost automatically, but not quite. There is always that tiny pause before the sentence lands. »I’m a lawyer.« »I’m in health care.« »I’m a carpenter.« »I work in marketing.« It sounds like a small difference. It isn’t. Because in that moment, you are not just sharing information. You are revealing a relationship to your work, and maybe to yourself.
Try this tonight. Turn off the lights, close the curtains, and wait until the room is as dark as it gets. Then keep your eyes open and look into the darkness. You might expect to see black — complete absence, the visual equivalent of silence. But that is not what happens.