Work meetings are broadly considered a boring activity. I also have too many. Still, I find them fascinating. Meetings and time, for example. Whether our weekly team meeting is 30 minutes or 90 minutes, what we talk about always expands to fill that time. It also doesn’t seem to affect whether our discussion goes off on a tangent or not.
Yesterday was a lesson in meetings and energy. Everyone had many thoughts and ideas. There was more creative energy in the room than there was time to explore all of it. So we got sidetracked and ran over.
Later in the day, a similar meeting happened. One person’s internet connection kept cutting out. Another started a new rabbit hole for us to go down. I presented some research that had too much depth for the session. After four hours of this for the day, I thought: “Phew, this is rough.”
But then I realized: “Actually, all you have to do is sit through. These aren’t our best meetings, but it’s totally fine. Sitting through stuff with good people is a privilege.” Plus, sometimes great insights come out of not-so-great meetings, and you’ll never know in advance.
Most of the time when we’re stuck in uncomfortable situations, we know we can endure. We merely forget that being able to practice our endurance already puts us on the sunny side of life. Enjoy sitting through, and whatever might follow will likely be a pleasant surprise.
