Let's face it: learning is hard. It asks us to push against what we think we already understand. It invites us into a world called "I didn't know that yet."
That’s a hard place to be.
And, sometimes the learning isn't even a straight line. Sometimes we run into an asterisk.
An asterisk asks us to check the margins, to skim to the bottom of the page, to look for an additional note somewhere.
It’s an extra.
Not a bonus, exactly, but a here’s-something-else-you-should-know.
It’s hard to pay attention to the asterisks, sometimes. We risk losing our place. Our momentum. We’ve already built inertia, and looking away from what we’ve always done toward something else feels unnecessary. It feels like too much.
But what does following the asterisk give us? What reward follows the risk?
An asterisk unfolds new lenses, new perspectives, new context. It frames, or reframes, what we’re doing. It makes sense of the inertia we’ve already developed, and it often describes a different destination that demands we adjust our trajectory.
The asterisk doesn’t let us blithely or blindly commit to momentum simply because we’ve got it. It doesn’t let us float at the buoyancy line of we’ve-always-done-it-this-way, or rest on the laurels of our status quo.
What do we risk when we risk the asterisk?
Everything.
Everything we’ve ever done, and all the reasons we’ve ever done it.
Not to reject what’s come before, necessarily, but to redefine what could come next.
It’s a risk, yes. But one that’s worth it.
Let’s risk the asterisk.
