Several seemingly unrelated events made me realize we don’t always see our current options and adapt to them.
- While Mark and I like our routines (laundry and grocery shopping on Sundays), sometimes that does not work for our other weekend timing. We need to change, to adapt to our needs work for us.
- My left wrist hurts. While typing is okay, I probably need to practice dictation. (Again!)
- While I will never use AI for writing, I can use an LLM to help me organize my thoughts for my books. Why? Because I’ve blogged about all of these ideas for years. Using an LLM to help me organize might be a shortcut to seeing what I have and do not yet have. Also, let me whine about chemo brain again. Sigh.
We have options we did not have before. But that means we need to see our current situation and recognize we have other options.
See Your Reality in the Light of More Options
I’ve blogged before about seeing your reality. But sometimes, we do not realize we have other options we can use to adapt to our current situation.
We started our Sunday routines decades ago. (I might have started doing laundry on Sundays when I was in college.) We like Sundays because, up until now, we had the most free time on Sundays. But that is no longer true. While Sundays are not like the push and pull of weekdays, I want to use Sundays to write and to more fully investigate clinical trials. Mark likes to take long bike rides on Sundays. Not to mention seeing our grandchildren! We have important things to see and do.
Are we as free on Sundays as we used to be?
Absolutely not.
However, we have more options than we had even just a decade ago. While I prefer to do our laundry ourselves, we do not need to go to the grocery store in person any longer. We have apps for that. I even experimented with those apps while I stayed in Florida last winter, escaping the Boston cold.
The apps work great. (As many of you already know.) But if you have “always” done the grocery shopping yourself, how do you know you can trust other people to do it as well as you do?
That’s what experiments are for.
Experiment Your Way to More Options
A couple of months ago, Mark did not feel like cooking on a weekend night. I suggested we get delivery.
The frown on his face? The pout? A toddler would have approved.
I explained how the delivery apps work and showed him what I wanted. The first time, he picked up our order. (Yes, I realize that is not delivery, but if you don’t trust that people will do this right, it’s time for a small step with feedback.)
That was successful. Since then, we have ordered more from that place, and we have both enjoyed everything we ate.
Now, it’s time to experiment our way to more options, including grocery shopping. I suspect this might take a little time, because we have not yet examined our options in light of how our lives have changed.
Recognize When We Have Options We Did Not Have Before
In Massachusetts, no grocery stores were open on Sundays until 1983. Once the laws changed, my weekend free time changed—all because I had options I did not have before.
It’s the same thing for our work. I will learn to use the tools we have available now.
- I tried to dictate this post, but I got stuck and had to return to flowing words through my fingers. Clearly, I need more experimentation!
- And I will use the LLMs as long as they offer me value and do not insinuate themselves in my writing.
I already write and publish my books differently than I did in the early 2000s. The pandemic changed how we can work together, including my consulting.
The world has changed and I have more options. Why would I use the same techniques for living than I did even twenty years ago?
Sometimes, we don’t recognize when our current situation changes. But we can’t see our options, never mind use them, until we do. That is the challenge we all have now.
Ain’t life grand?