It was foggy this morning as I headed off to work. Over night, a warm rain had fallen on the snow and there was a mist along side the road. I understood how the warm moist air over the remnant of the cold snow produced these vapors, but there still was something eerie about it. You could see objects through the mist, and often make out what they were, but not clearly.

I was on my way to a United Way breakfast. I knew approximately when and where it was supposed to be, but that was about all. The lack of clarity about the first meeting of the morning also added to my uneasiness.

As I drove along, I thought about a book I've been about social thinking at work. As a person with a background in math, computers, and logic, I like to have clear details about whatever I am working on. When I write computer programs, I have a clear idea of what they are going to do and why they are going to do it. Yet in social situations, things are very different. I may say one thing, expecting a certain result and get an unexpected result. I suspect that has led to some of my reticence in speaking my mind in various work related situations. I wonder how many of my more logically oriented friends run into this, either not thinking about the reactions to what they say at work, being surprised at the reactions and/or simply avoiding saying things due to a lack of clarity as to what the reaction might be.

I thought about the book, Social Thinking at Work, which a friend has sent me, and I've been reading a little bit of here and there. It seems as if these thoughts fit nicely with the ideas in that book.

Then, my mind wandered to an article I had read years ago from the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations. It was entitled, "Our Best Work Happens When We Don't Know What We're Doing". It isn't about trying to do something that you don't know how to do, but about seeking to grow as the mind gets exposed to truth. To do that, we need to be at a place of unknowing in the moment, a place where we can sit back and wait to recognize the lessons we are hoping to learn.

Over the years, I've often gone to events where I don't know what to expect, where I lack clarity about the event and the outcomes. These are often times when I am nervous going to some events, but if I power through them, listen, and learn from the events, they turn out to be quite wonderful.

The United Way annual meeting breakfast turned out to be very much like this. I found the room was filled with many friends and acquaintances from work. These were good people who work hard to make the communities they live in better places. They are inspirations.

After the breakfast was over, I drove to the office, enjoying the sunshine and the clarity that the day had brought.