It's amazing what a little rain can do

It's very dry and crispy in northern Ohio, so it is a treat to see all the green around Columbus. Our complex has well water sprinkler system, but the whole metropolitan area has had more rain than the Toledo area. Still we expect some heat build up, so after church I put on some walking shoes, a sleeveless denim dress, and walked for about 15 minutes. It's not as much as I get at the lake where I walk everywhere, but it sooths the conscience.

Some of our neighbors still haven't discovered that now that we have sidewalks, they are expected to take care of the area they can't see from their yard (huge bushes to hide the street). Weeds, grass clippings, and branches from the bushes are making the walk a bit hazardous. 1195 Kingsdale Terrace has a lovely house and yard, but I wish they'd step around the corner and see what we see. 'Taint purty.

Had to go to Caribou this morning since Panera's opens late. I noticed that there's a bulletin board for customers to post their "goals." Some are really funny, but pathetic too, because they are so unrealistic and vague ("change the world"), there's no way to get there from here. I've written before about the best book I ever read on the topic of planning is "Stop setting goals." Worth another look:

The book I'd been waiting for my whole life I didn't read until the first official day of my retirement (Oct. 1, 2000). Its title grabbed me and I knew it was written for me: "STOP SETTING GOALS" by Bob Biehl (Nashville: Moorings, 1995).

The premise is that some people are energized by achieving goals they have set, and others (a higher percentage) are energized by identifying and solving problems. And it isn't semantics. To ask problem solvers to set goals puts knots in their stomachs and interferes with their natural gifts. To ask goal setters to work on a problem puts them in a foul mood because they think "negative" when they hear "problem."

Problem solvers see goal setters as sort of pie-in-the sky, never-finish-anything types, and goal setters see problem solvers as negative nay-sayers. Bigotry, in both directions.

I'm willing to bet that most librarians are problem solvers and that's why they chose the field. I used to be in Slavic Studies. In my own mind, I thought the Soviet Union collapsed from pathologically terminal five year plans--too much goal setting and not enough problem solving.

Biehl poses an interesting question that works for both groups. "What three things can we do in the next 90 days to make a 50% difference (by the end of this year, by the end of the decade, by the end of my life). It makes no difference if you say, "what three goals can we reach" or "what three problems can we solve," because either personality can get a handle on this question.

I was challenged during my last year at work to stop using the word "problem" and replace it with "challenge" or "opportunity." It was a good time to retire. It took away all motivation for showing up at work for a darn good problem solver.