Several pilots who are in the position to know think the industry is on the up swing. I am going to hang on to that idea over these next several months. One of my life strategies is to build a box - euphemistically speaking - with a timer on it. I put stuff in that box. For example, I ask myself will this matter a month from now? If it won't matter then it's not that big a deal today ... if I don't know, I put it in the box and check back.
Sometimes a situation that does matter and will always matter comes up, but it's a situation that requires more capacity then is currently available ... like another person or maybe a different season ... those things I put in a box that times out after a specific length of time ... like saying good bye to a friendship where issues aren't able to be resolved ... I might save the issue for a year or two ... hoping ... , but if it is unresolvable then I jettison it off my star ship eventually. The thing I like about that is I can enjoy the good aspects of the time spent in the friendship with out the hurtful aspects lingering. An issue with my mom would be a good example of that ... keep the mom, but stop hoping for resolution, just work with what is available.
Larger issues I may put in a bigger box with longer expiration dates on them. I noticed just this year that I do that. I've know that I do that, but not on a conscious level ... . I said in some of my ramblings here that I run out of runway without markers ... meaning I have a lot of patience for things to stop until suddenly I don't. I'm starting to think that this coping strategy may not be as great as I've thought it was. One big flaw is ... hmmm, how do I do a quick background?
Mrs. Cook, one of my HS teachers assigned a writing project where the student is to describe what the inside of their head would look like if one could walk around in there. I didn't save the paper, but I distinctly remember describing a room (among others) that opened up as you strolled through it ... where memories were saved ... it looked a lot like an art gallery, with multi media presentations ... and tucked in, very tidy, were little storage areas for things ... memories ... that didn't need to be on open display for whatever reason. As I wrote the paper I thought those little boxes represented the part of our brain that we don't actively use, or use yet. I'm sure the whole computer analogy would be stronger, but we didn't have that technology at our fingertips back in the mid seventies.
So one big flaw is ... the boxes don't hold stuff forever. The boxes get kinda ragtag and have to be replaced or reorganized. And a huge problem is; shelving stuff that I don't want to work on now, even in it's tidy little box, is what some people may call avoidance. When that stack of boxes comes tumbling down it makes a surprising mess.
(I have nice boxes in my house for holding/hiding clutter. I don't like to label the boxes because it's a little unsightly ... it makes finding things unnecessarily like a treasure hunt and now that I think about that, I may get the ole sharpie out.)
I like the idea of prioritising stuff with a timer ... I don't like the idea of avoiding issues and calling it patience. I'm thinking about that today.