Freedom or constraints?

My wife was writing our weekly food/groceries order online tonight and asked me: “What would you like to have for dinner this Friday when your friend visits us?”. I couldn’t think of anything. Isn’t that interesting? I have all the possibilities in the world and come up with no answer. Had she instead asked, “Would you like to eat pancakes or meatballs?” the problem would have been extremely easy. Voila, we just created a boundary condition. There’s clearly a flip side with total freedom when it comes to creativity.

PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistJanuary 3, 2022choices, leadership, culture, creativity, freedom, responsibilityComment

Discipline equals freedom

I always write my blog posts on Saturday mornings, but today I am writing this post at a café in my hometown Umeå, around lunchtime. I haven’t gotten enough sleep the past week, and last night me and my wife had an important discussion which dragged on past midnight. I realized that four hours of sleep on top of the already empty sleep account would come back to bite me, when my alarm went off at 04:45. The icing on the cake was that my son had cuddled up next to me in the night, sleeping peacefully. Even my dogs were extraordinarily calm (they usually want to go walking around 05:00). It was that kind of a moment that you only get a handful of in a lifetime and I wasn’t going to miss it. I decided that my blog can wait a couple of hours and switched off the alarm.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistSeptember 26, 2020blogging, writing, consistency, flexibility, freedomComment