HTR and the central self

As you can tell, from the recent lack of posting and the most recent Bunny Days post, I'm in a bit of an odd place. Bunny Days, for me, are a clear indicator that I am not settled or, more precisely, not centered. I've been running through some ideas about why this might be the case. My tentative theory is this: I've been so focused on efficiency (doing things right) that I've lost my perspective on effectiveness (doing the right things).

Take a look at HTR. The focus to date has been freeing myself "from" silly HAVE TOs. While that has been extremely valuable, it is really only the first step. The next step is understanding what I have freed myself up "to" do. I have very efficiently worked myself into a position that I have time to consider what I should be doing to be effective. I have a lot of experience with efficiency, so this has been fairly simple for me.

I have a lot of experience with identifying effective use of my time as well - but only in a business context. In the business world, there are very clear goals and objectives. The company, followed by the businesses within the company, followed by the units, departments and groups nested within each larger organization, establishes a direction and intention. As a fixer, I design my work efforts and products to support those goals. It is just a matter of alignment, really, or occasionally sorting.

In my personal life, I use the same approach for short term goals - as you have seen during HTR - but I have not been able to pull this off for long term (>1 year) goals. In fact, I can't even seem to consider long term goals. I have come to the startling conclusion that I have no idea what I really want to do in the big picture, strategic sense of the word. And I suspect that this is largely due to a complete and utter lack understanding of my "central self". So, for the next few days or weeks or months, I will be researching ways to differentiate between my central and calculated selves. To be honest, I'm not sure how - or even if - this will work, but I know that I have to try. Otherwise, I'll keep driving myself crazy with Bunny Days and vague dissatisfaction and talking continuously to all of you about the same. How boring would THAT be?

Bunny days

That's right, you heard me. Bunny days.

Perhaps I should explain. My most commonly used approach to problem solving, particularly at work, is to first understand the people involved. This works pretty well in business. For the most part, we all tone down our central selves and resort to a work persona, so there is less to learn. And the persona (or calculated self) foundations are usually with a fairly narrow range, so there is less that I find really puzzling.

However, for the last 6 weeks or so, I have found this increasingly difficult for no apparent reason. Suddenly, I could no longer make sense of a large number of people. I explained it once as the way my dog must feel when she tilts her head and says "ourh?" - which I usually translate as "Mom, you are one wierd dog." But that really hasn't been enough to describe the absurd and slightly hysterical quality that I feel in my head.

So, I found a picture on a colleague's cubicle wall. If it makes no sense to you, feel free to ignore it. If it strikes a chord, however, then you'll know what I mean when I tell you that I feel like I've been stuck in some serious bunny days.

















Just for the record, this is Oolong. He was a much photographed rabbit that lived in Japan for 8 years until 2003. Here is a link to the website with his pictures.