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Well, it’s a new year, and it’s going to be a strange one. So, I’m getting ready by drawing water drops. Let me explain!
My mentor and friend @jessicahelfand is co-presenting an upcoming course on Fortune Connect about designing equitable products and systems. As we were prepping, we got into a conversation about observing deeply, the world and self.
“It’s the foundation of all the work we need to do,” she said. Empathy, creativity, transformation, justice, all of it. “Look for a simple practice.”
It’s been a tough year for everyone. And, the last few months were brutal for me — lost folks to COVID, became overwhelmed by my beat, and generally frightened for the world. Then, my 90-year-old mother fell and needs long term care — a nightmare scenario.
With her in the hospital, her bedridden husband, was under-tended. He was soon hospitalized with bedsores. Horror show.
They’re both languishing in a facility far away, and I’ve been struggling to manage their care from afar, along with the likelihood that I’d never see them again.
All of this, while trying to do good work and build something new in the world. I am determined not to waste the work I’ve done on #raceAhead or squander the moment we’re in.
That said, observing anything except my own deep grief and fear seemed like too much to do. But I trust @jessicahelfand.
And then I found this tweet by @PavelASamsonov, who’d posted Randall Rudd's instructions for drawing a single drop of water. (Which is how I learned who Randall Rudd was. Double bonus.) https://twitter.com/pavelasamsonov/status/1341881125053071368?s=12
And I thought, okay, I can do that. I can try drawing that. I’ll do it every day in 2021 until I’m ready to observe something else.
Naturally, I had an equipment failure on Jan 1, the wrong pencils and a totally busy buzzy brain unable to focus or relax. Resolution faceplant
But I got it done today and Jessica was right. (She always is)
See ya tomorrow. I got this. You got this. We got this. I probably don't tell you this enough: I love you.
