C> you've been doing, by the way, an awesome job.
D> I only recently become aware of how much stress it was adding to my life.
seriously, though, compliments to David echoed, for steadiness and
quality of labours - Chuq's words reminded me of something which
I feel is not stated and emphasized (anywhere) ANYWHERE enough:
C> My public burnouts (more than once; not pretty) are pretty legendary.
C> The key, which took me years to learn, is to back off when it starts getting
C> to you, not when you can't stand it any more. Better pacing. Disappear for a
C> week here, learn to sit on your hands and stay out of an argument over there
C> and generally realize that you don't have to be involved in solving every
C> crisis you see -- either it'll muddle through or someone else will step up.
C> I was not always a positive [net] influence, even when I was trying hardest
C> to fix it. Probably especially when I was trying my hardest to fix it.
cloning, Cloning, CLONING yourself. One of the first orders of
business (and a permanently active project) should be, for anyone
who takes on any kind of netwide support duty, to clone himself,
to have substitutes, side-kicks, alternates, to the point where
everything that needs doing is done by others !! :-))
That is the TRUE sign by which to recognize a successful
net-activist! The plans and projects are so good that lots
of people want 'to be a part of it'... (a la painting the fence
with Huckleberry Finn ;-)....on some days, when I try to fathom
why I hear from more critics and complainers than from volunteers
asking "where do I sign up? how can I help? what would you have
me do first?", fears of 'doing something terribly wrong' crop up...
I predict that instead of burn-outs, we'll then have "burn-ins"
(i.e. a healthy - or even unhealthy - tan, instead of that
burning-the-(night)-candles-at-both-ends paleness... not to forget
the more and more frequent shrillness in "tone")
We end up doing too many of the "I" business plans, too little of
that "we" (or even "them") strategic planning... :-)
But, yes, just "doing" and less talking about it, that is probably
part of the art and science of the net ....
Gobble-Gobble !!
This page last updated on: Jul 1 09:16