Chaotic surprise. The sudden realisation that what you assumed to know is not “known” to you in the sense that you had believed. It comes with a sense of “feeling lost” coupled with the anxiety of solving for the unknown. We encounter these scenarios more often than we think in the day-to-day rigours of life.
excellence
Persons are cultivated in families. Families give us the values that help us orient ourselves in a way that allows us to participate in life. This gives parents a huge responsibility. As a parent, you are essentially shaping the initial perspective of the persons you parent. In essence, you cultivate the first version of this person. For this reason, it’s important to account for this attribute when interacting with someone.
Have you ever felt trapped in your own life, unable to live on your own terms, yet having to follow guidelines prescribed to you? As we mature, we reach a place where we recognise that we have a particular nature of expression unique to ourselves. It’s like a resonance with the spirit of who we are, emerging from a sense of failure to fit anywhere. No matter what experiences we accumulate or skills we learn, we inevitably find that we have our own way of doing things—our signature style that marks everything we touch.
The journey starts with identifying those unique gifts through noticing and taking seriously one’s preferences for excellence. Many a time, we undermine our individual preferences with respect to fitting in and social belonging. However, this comes at the cost of suppressing our innate desires, which sometimes can be the spark of the gifts within us that are there to express our excellence. When we respond to that spark and take it seriously, it often comes with a clear vision of a potential reality that could manifest.
In life, we all have a taste for excellence and mastery. It’s as though the most true things are embodied through practicing excellence and mastery. However, the journey to the place where one has elegantly embodied excellence and mastery is challenging. In a recent conversation I had with Stephen Musoke Senkomago (a.k.a SMS), we explored this theme and learned a few things.
When cultivating excellence and refining our crafts, a good example always comes in in handy. It serves as an ideal we can aim for so that we can side-step mediocrity as we navigate the journey of our careers. In a recent conversation with Bashir, we explored his mentorship work and the value of setting a good example in a given domain of work.