Josh Allred's Blog

When the boss calls with an assignment, most people take it without much objection.

The question, I have is why do we need a boss to tell us what to do next?

In fact, why do we need a call from anyone to take any action? We shouldn’t need to be asked. We can also choose to notice things and decide where we can best help each other. That’s a choice.

It’s great to react when someone asks for help, it’s another thing to initiate.

We are far more likely to quit when we view life as a game we can win or lose.

The virtual dollars on a screen, the number of subscribers, what the grades looked like, how happy one feels…

That is also the source of so much burnout. If we become so attached to the outcome, we miss so many of the lessons to be learned. We think that if we win, then we will be happy.

Good mental health is not the absence of suffering. The goal is not to be without sadness or to feel good all the time. No, good mental health is having the appropriate response to outside stimuli. It is having a good sense of locus of control. It is about resiliency. Connections with people who you want to share this journey with.

It is a shame when the world beats people down so hard that they find themselves not trying anymore. Often what is missing is the perspective. You are not going to make it through without feeling the “bad stuff” along the way.

We can think about solving problems efficiently or innovatively. Often we confuse the two though. If we become more efficient at putting Part A to Part B together faster today than yesterday it must be innovative. It certainly can be innovative to come up with a new technique or machine or idea to do things better, safer, faster, and more reliably. However, the kind of innovation we see is not baby steps but a giant leap. We want to see a whole new approach to solving a problem we didn’t think needed to be solved. Which takes insight, luck, and seeing things that others can’t.

If you don’t have a system that supports you, you learn to live without it.

Of course, it doesn’t mean you don’t miss the ideal of what things could look like.

Missing pieces of a completed puzzle always capture the most attention.

In Greek Mythology, Pandora was the first woman ever created by Hephaestus under the watch of Zeus. Pandora is translated as “gift” or “all endowed”. And that is what the gods gave her. Lots of gifts such as beauty and intellect. But they also gave her curiosity.

One day, the gods decided to test her curiosity. As the allegory goes, Pandora was given a box and was instructed to never open it. Of course, she eventually does, and to her surprise, all the plagues and terrible creatures of the world escape. When Pandora tries to close the box it is too late.

It’s a story of why bad things happen. But it is fiction. And we can tell ourselves all sorts of stories of why this stuff happens but in the end, we tell the ones that help us cope.

We don’t flinch walking towards an automatic sliding door. We trust that as we approach the door it is going to slide open and we can walk through without delay.

There are so many things we rely on on a regular basis to work perfectly, we don’t even realize how much is automated unless it breaks. For instance:

The refrigerator will keep your food cold.

Your car will start in the morning.

The water coming out of the tap is clean.

The lights will turn on.

This email will be received by the person you sent it to.

The street light will eventually turn green.

The airplane can fly safely in the air.

Your toilet will flush.

Your heart will still beat.

Your lungs will still work.

That Earth will continue to rotate.

The sun will still shine in the morning.

That gravity is constant.

And on, and on, and on.

Everything we do, we rely on someone or something else to do it. It’s all built upon each other. And while automation has made life so much easier in so many ways, it is also scary to see where it goes. More importantly, we must remember the culture just works better when we are all in sync.

Not the shoe. No, the Greek mythological goddess of victory.

To have a winner there must also be a loser.

The source of so much of our suffering may be the drive to win. But if the game ends, what is there left to do?

We have to look for significance outside of accolades, status, and victory because those come and go.

Something to think about.

Absolutely depression and anxiety can be pathological. No question, we have plenty of data to support this. So I want to put that to the side. There is also a culture that treats these negative emotions as too pathological instead of embracing this as part of the human experience.

Too often people treat psychological distress as if it were the same as mental health concerns. But that isn’t true. It is actually the other way around. The presence of psychological distress is evidence of mental health. Meaning no one expects to not encounter distress throughout the day or in their lifetime. Distress can be severe like death, disease, or loss. It can also be smaller like being told no when asking someone to dance. It is when people react indifferently that experts begin to worry.

We need to be clear on this, being mentally healthy doesn’t mean feeling good all the time. (Sorry Kramer.) Instead, we need to ask ourselves, does the feeling fit the situation you are in? And are these feelings you are experiencing being managed appropriately?

A mentally healthy person doesn’t live in the absence of depression or anxiety.

With the mastery of writing also came to-do lists, books, shopping lists, log books, recipes, instructions, manuals, and eventually email.

All of those inventions led to something else even more innovative.

That’s how technology progresses. At first not fully understood or is underutilized and then, all of sudden, it is laying the groundwork for something we didn’t even imagine we needed.

Open up our imaginations and who knows what we will find once we pull the string.

What’s interesting about the Powerball is that you could get five out of the six numbers right and think, “I was so close.”

Of course, you weren’t.

But the story we tell ourselves is that if we play again, maybe this time you’ll win.

It’s the same when playing Blackjack or the marketplace.

Past results do not indicate what the future will become. And since we desperately want to create a predictable future we will look for evidence that isn’t there. Unfortunately, casinos, social media feeds, etc. will use that against us.

A broken clock is correct twice a day.