CuppaGemma

Being able to shift knowledge from one application or kind of work to another completely different arena is a good skill to have.

It’s exercising your thinking. Adaptability can widen your perspective because you don’t limit what you do to only being useful in one context or for one specific set of events.

“There is always another way.” “No one knows everything.” “Pay attention.” “Ask a different question if the ones you have don’t get to the root of the problem.”

Those were concepts I kept in mind as I worked with mothers, babies and health care professionals as a lactation consultant. In some ways those concepts mattered more then the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics or my observations on position and latch. Solving mechanics is one thing. Respecting that you can and should always be learning is wholly another.

It’s easy to fall into a pattern of If this then that. You can kind of gloss over and see this dyad as just another set to deal with. You can miss out on what the root cause of something is by relying on habit and the convenience of check lists to make sure everything is fine.

But if you choose to look at each case with careful attention, and if you choose to really sit down and make holistic assessment of all that is happening, you can have a much richer understanding of the problem(s) at hand. You can also with this kind of thinking allow yourself to consider solutions not to be pat, but something that must really be crafted and recrafted each time.

It not be the most effective way to complete a long checklist. But it may be the most in depth way to solve a problem.

The question becomes how committed are you to make a difference? Is maintaining the status quo and completing what was asked all that you need to do?

It’s an interesting discussion to have with folks. Why do you do what you do? And how committed are you to it? Is it a paycheck for paycheck’s sake? Or does it have value?

And to what sort of paradigm do you chose to align yourself as you walk through life? The good easy paycheck that lets you have a nice car house and holiday? Or something that might have less in the personal wealth category as defined by the IRS but more in the intrinsic value when it comes to personal ethics?

As a single mother with two adolescent children I know full well what it means to run a house and balanced budget. But I also know that I want the boys to be proud of their mom at “Bring your child to work day” because she does something that matters with a team who shares respect for one another, not just makes money.