By finding the appropriate distance patterns become visible.

The pattern that becomes visible depends on the distance we’ve taken.

As projects unfold, the work is being done, the very work that will contribute to a pattern.

Reflections on a project ease finding patterns, that is the ones that helped move the project forward as well as those contributing to running into obstacles. While we may hope that they are the mix of solution finding and making errors, it rarely is as focused as the project happens within a context contributing to its results.

Integrating the difference between the things we control and those we don’t results from looking at the events in a project from a greater distance. It seems to shift the things that are within our control and those which are not. The more we engage in this exercise, the more hope there might be to get things under control if we could project ourselves into a future that is further away. That’s also when things become scary.

But history repeats itself.

Whatever collapse there has been, it is followed by something emerging from it.

Anxiety and hope are reactions to the unfolding process of the project we are working on. They are part of it as much as they build it.

The point of the exercise isn’t to search for control. It is to navigate hope and anxiety as contributors to what we do. Everything is possible.