6 Lessons from walking the streets of chaotic Naples about our uncertain yet so pre-programmed work life
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You don’t need to go to Naples, Italy, to rebel against the complex algorithms encroaching on our lives
Roaming the streets of Naples in Italy for two weeks — practicing Street Photography with a small group of passionate photographers in this vibrant city — taught me a few things about how measuring and digitizing everything has distanced us from life itself.
We want to organize, plan, predict and strategize our lives, businesses, and a successful future.
The business world tells how and what success should mean to us
We have learned and are constantly told that success and progress are a result of control, unambiguity, and a clear solution.
Along the way, we lost a sense of real human life, which we cannot structure and digitize but which we should recognize in its complexity, ambiguity, richness, and chaos.
Here are 6 lessons I learned about distorted views on work and life from taking the time to observe and immerse in an unknown, chaotic place.
1 Being in control is an illusion
We like to be in control.
But we have no control over unexpected and unknown situations.
And that is what Naples made me realize.
You might want to argue that we can be in control because that is what we do in our daily lives and at work. Finding and defining methods and systems to control everything.
You can’t control people and situations in the streets, especially not in such a vibrant and chaotic city like Naples.
Mega-dramas, drastic situations, and crises happen in our lives and the world. In our daily personal and professional lives, on a larger scale such as financial crises, attacks, or floods, or a global scale such as epidemics.
We don’t know what we can expect. And we experience over and over again that we cannot control it.
But we do have control over our attitudes, how we see, classify, and deal with the situation.
