I have written about this before, but bear with me. I think I have more to say.

In my last missive, I mentioned the inflection points as we travel between potential and kinetic energy. The power in recognizing inflection points is we have the ability to see where small changes can make a big difference. Or, sometimes we see that even if we try to add massive amounts of change, we cannot affect the situation.

I have to say, in the moments where no matter the choice I make I cannot change the outcome, I find it depressing. I want so much to have agency over every aspect of my life and over every aspect of all lives. It has taken a long time to realize that even though I don’t always have the power¹Or the will. Or the ability. Or the desire. to make a change in every moment in time, I do still have an effect.

In my office²And a whole host of others according to the news, there is a struggle going on about when and how we return to the office. It is interesting to take my theory about inflection points and apply it to the current work/life/facetime struggle.

Back in February of 2020, LittleOne was in sixth grade. He was still in a before school program³Don’t call it daycare!. Every day, there seemed to be a clock that started the moment I dropped him off at the program. Doors opened at 7am. I was supposed to be at my desk by 8:30am. Would I make it⁴I almost never did.? I wanted so much at that time to write a formal flexible schedule work agreement so that one day a week, I would know I could start working before 9am. It would make me better at my job. I felt I had no agency over this, because my employer refused. I remember sitting in the car thinking, “Well, this won’t last forever. I have 10 more weeks and then it will all change!”⁵Little did I realize the changes coming. I didn’t know it then, but my life was coming up to an inflection point and the ability I would have to influence the way my daily life functioned would disappear for quite a while.

Today, as we contemplate returning to the office, I am much less fussed. First, the commute hasn’t ramped up all the way yet⁶And with the US government work from home policies, it doesn’t seem like it will get THAT bad THAT soon. Currently, www.opm.gov says it is operating under maximum telework with no end in sight.. In addition, there are other changes in the day to day that change where the inflection points are going to fall in my life. BigOne has gone off to college. LittleOne is entering high school and wants to get a job. The reality of 2020 is gone forever, because we moved on. So even when you can’t influence the anything at the inflection point, there is still a progression. There is still a change from being where you are towards where you will be. Is it where you want to go?

Maybe.

But, being aware of when an inflection point is coming is the first step. The second step is figuring out where to go. The third step is figuring out what your resources are and how you can use the things you can, and can’t, control to help you get where you want to go. Easy right?

Maybe.

It is hard sometimes to live in this space when the big picture also matters. We had the choice in the US to ignore the directive to only shop once a week. We had the choice in the US to get on the road and travel. We had that choice in 2020 and we have that choice today. Some people in other nations had similar choices. Some people didn’t. We all lived with our choices, and we all lived with the choices we were able to make. As I look around the world⁷And I do travel around the world from time to time, I stop to be grateful that while our society isn’t perfect, we get a lot more chances here to make our choices and revel in the results of our choices.

There are a lot of news stories these days that make our cultures and our societies here in the US look scary⁸Guns, Politics, Divisive Rhetoric…. I remind myself each of us has agency to change how we accept the course we are on and when and where we choose to try to change it. I am reminding myself not to rest on my laurels. Life isn’t a destination, it’s a journey. Even when I reach a destination⁹An inflection point., I am going to embrace that it is an inflection point. Everything that got me here is going to help me move on to the next place. In those moments, I have the biggest chance to choose that next place for me, for my family, and how I influence where I go for all of us.