9:00AM
How often do we prepare for the things that we do in life? I mean, really think about what we are going to do before we do it? What does it mean to really prepare for something?
I remember getting into a discussion with someone, probably one of the people I used to do training with in Germany, about me not being prepared enough. For that person, to be prepared means to prepare for a specific situation—e.g., I have a history exam coming up and I need to study very hard the specific topics that will be on the exam.
For me, to be prepared has a slightly different meaning: to prepare for general situations. By this, I mean to build the skills and ability to handle situations without a lot of specific work required beforehand. For example, in the case of a history exam, it would be learning the topics of history throughout the year, learning the skills at taking exams under pressure, learning the skills at remembering historical dates and other factors.
I can get somewhat defensive when people say that I’m not prepared because they seem to get angry that I’m not prepared in the way that they define “prepared.”
I sat down to write this and even had that thought slip into my head: “I don’t know what I will write and I would know if only I had prepared for it.” At the same time, I believe I have been preparing for it every single time that I sit down to write and don’t know what to talk about. I’ve been preparing myself, building the skills, to deal with sitting down, having to write, and feeling uncertain about what to write.
Perhaps this is a way of me justifying why I don’t like to do what I view as homework. I don’t like to always prepare and plan things out as others would, I like much more to do things on the spot. I remember a business coach saying that when it comes to public speaking, introverts over-prepare and extroverts under-prepare. That extroverts think they’ll be fine winging it, and if only they put in a little more effort to prepare, they’d take their performance from a 70% grade to 90% or more.
I still believe that skill building is one of the best ways to prepare for life and its many situations. If I can practice the movements required, then I am prepared to respond to the situation, just not so directly.
Ooo, maybe their definition of preparation is more about offense whereas mine is more about defense. But, if things are constantly interacting with each other, isn’t it always offense and defense, depending on how we look at it?
I don’t know.
9:10AM
