Happy THANKSGIVING!
- Marty Schad
- Nov 22, 2018
- 2 min read
Today is Thanksgiving Day (in the US), a wonderful holiday of good cheer and gratitude. One of the opportunities of this day is to reflect on all we have and all we have been given. This is a great time to be alive with tremendous possibilities. There is much that I am thankful for. I’d also like to think about Thanksgiving from the Process Perspective today, starting with a story about a discussion I had with my father a long time ago. My Dad and I were driving somewhere and chatting and I was looking around at all the man-made objects surrounding me. It struck me how much man-made stuff was actually surrounding me, when I thought about the difference between a park and a city center. As I reflected further, I realized that all of this man-made stuff has come from the ground and is now our gleaming high-technology landscape. I thought this was kind of profound; I had never looked at things like that before. So I asked my Dad: “Do you realize all of the stuff we see around us came from below the ground, absolutely everything we see! It’s amazing. Did you ever think about that? Isn’t that cool?” My Dad’s answer: “No”. My dad was old-school, practical, and a man of few words. He had never thought about it. It was funny how excited I was about it and how short our discussion was. It still makes me laugh when I think about it. However, I’m still fascinated when I think about this. All the stuff we have around us was made through a clever combination of process and equipment. This has been going on for millennia. Beautiful glass objects were made four thousand years ago. Today we make space shuttles and large-scale integrated circuits. The efforts continue. I am thankful for all the work that’s been done to make the stuff that I depend on a daily basis: my car, coffee, my cell phone, this computer, my house, medical diagnostic equipment, warm and durable clothing, paper books, and so on. This list is not endless but it is long. What is also amazing to me is how available all of this stuff is and how all of these process/equipment combinations keep cranking out more stuff. I am very thankful for all of the benefits it has for me, and I have respect and appreciation for all of the work and toil that have been put in to get to this point. It is remarkable.
My main learning from this line of thinking is how lucky we are to be living in a time when all of this stuff is available for us. This stuff has been made throughout history by combining clever processes and equipment.
YOUR CHALLENGE THIS WEEK
Please think about all of the man-made objects you depend on on a daily basis, without a second thought…
Which of these things have had the largest impact on you, which are most useful to you?
What can you imagine that still needs to be created? What can you do today to make progress on this?
I’d enjoy hearing your comments about Thanksgiving viewed through the “Process Perspective lens”. Please send your thoughts to me at marty@martyschad.com, or call me at 508-410-8081.
All the Best, Marty
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