<div class="text-justify">


>The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

Even though poetic, this is probably a pretty true observation. Since no matter how much we plan, we are unlikely to be able to consider all the factors and their interplay and knock-on effects. We are unlikely to ever get exactly what we have planned for, no matter how confident our prediction might be. Similarly, we never know what kinds of benefits something might provide, even though at the time we think that it might not be much use at all.

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/243Ly3YeNLDjp4bRRMMwR5A1UiQV6EmsoxBYiNYF28TfMp1fLixw6C9oC6KiKWQ5X9Y9g.png)

> Has anything in your life proved more valuable than you first predicted?

Perhaps it was a chance encounter with an individual, or a class that at school that bored you at the time and for which you saw no practical application. Whatever it is, the laws of random mean that we just *never know* what an outcome might be, because at any single point in time, we are missing far more information about the future than we possess. 

For some, this might seem surprising, because technically, we have the most information about our world at this point in time, than at any other point of history. Yet, this view suffers from a logic fallacy, making an assumption on how much is yet to learn, even though there is no visibility on the depth of that knowledge pool. The position we are really taking I think is that we are making an assumption that what we know *is enough* for what we need. 

Yet, if we consider how many of the situations of our lives have been affected by conditions that we didn't know about at the time, shouldn't we make the assumption that what we know isn't enough? This isn't to say that we should then berate ourselves and try to find out more, but perhaps it opens more of a gateway to being curious enough to explore further, and recognize that a lot of what is valuable, is born from situations that might not have seemed connected or compatible at first glance. 

I have spent a lot of time in helping people develop their soft skills in the workplace, but what tends to be at the core of their success to advance, isn't from what they have aimed for, but what they have brought to the table from other areas of their lives, and the skills they have developed in completely different situations. Like the resilience and determination of athletes to push through boring repetition. Or the ability of a dancer to be sensitive to the needs of others, learned from following movements. 

At the time of practice, no one thought that the skills they were learning and practicing would have any impact on their future professional lives working in a manufacturing or technology business, let alone thought it might be fundamental to their success to advance, but the impacts were profound. Yet, the skills that have helped them advance, do not appear on any of their job descriptions, nor are they implied that a person must hold them to be successful. 

When we think of what makes us unique or what gives us value, we don't necessarily do a very good job of identifying factors. And even if we do, we tend not to do a very good job of working out ways where we can apply them to deliver an impact that compounds with the actions that are expected from us. And this goes back to the opening quote, because while we can plan to use what we have well, it doesn't mean that our plans are going to work out as well as we had planned. 

And I think that this is why I like soft skill development, because rather than being something we "plan to do", the skills are things that are part of us, that we apply without planning - *they come naturally.* But "natural" doesn't mean that we are born with some special talent, even though we might have higher or lower levels naturally, or have higher or lower potential to grow in some areas. A lot of things can be developed just by our own activity, even if we do not have any intention to grow at all.

And, I think that this is a big part of the reason that I am pretty negative on how so many people put so much of their effort into passive consumption activity. Because being passive doesn't mean we aren't learning, as we are still reinforcing the lessons of the activity. Looking at the skills of the majority of my students that proved to be the most valuable for them, they are mostly not the skills that have come from passive behavior, but those from active. And at least through my own life, the things I have learned that have provided the most value to me, aren't from what I have watched, read, or consumed - it is from what I have done.

And it all makes me wonder. We might not know what the outcomes will be, but we can predict them based on what we have learned so far. Has what we have learned so far led us to believe that passive consumption is the best way forward?

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]


</div>