Vithun's Avatar Vithun's Blog

Know the Bigger Picture

The automatic rising arm at the entrance of my gym’s parking lot has been broken for the last few weeks. Everyday when I get in, I see the bit that is left of the arm (can I call it the shoulder?) still doing its job dutifully.

It was a good reminder that we can sometimes focus too much on doing our part of the job well and lose sight of whether the things around it are functioning as well.

We might think: “Hey, I’ve been tilting up to let the car through and reverting back down when it’s done and that is exactly what I was supposed to do”. But we forget that the actual job to be done was controlling the cars getting through, and that job is no longer being done.

Related thought: Start with Why

Reply on X