Not knowing

It is so much of a theme of my life right now that I do not know how things will turn out. That was brought home to me (again) yesterday, but in a pretty positive way.

I often think about things that will be good for my mother.

One important thing for her used to be talking on the phone with her friends. I remember it as being like when something was bothering her, she would need to discuss it with three friends before she would be okay with it. Also, after we bundled phone, cable, and internet, international phone calls got really cheap and she started calling her sister more. That was good too.

Her sister has been dead for about a year and a half now, and two of her closest friends have been gone for quite a while. That really just left one good friend, except that I remembered that there was another friend. After she was widowed and moved out of state to live with one of her children, she and Mom had kind of lost touch. Mom had tried calling the new number, but there was never an answer.

I had this idea that maybe they could be back in touch if I worked with the daughter.

I probably had the idea in November, but I actually sent the message on December 2nd. I quickly heard nothing.

Okay, maybe it wasn't a great idea. Or, maybe I wasn't the one who should be in charge of it. I tried offloading the idea to Julie. Still nothing.

I just heard back Friday night, and the friend called Saturday. Disappointingly, the call was over in two minutes. Was it not really a good idea? Could it have been a good idea if I had gotten on it sooner, but I missed the window of opportunity?

I exchanged another set of messages with the daughter, explaining more about what would work in a phone call (don't ask her if this is a good time; that will just worry her that it isn't). Yesterday they had a long visit by phone, and I think it was good for both of them.

I was ready to trash that idea so many times; it wasn't even that long a time period. Three months.

I did it anyway, which is probably my main point with this. There is just always a lot that you can't know.

Way back when I worked at Intel, one of the "values" was risk-taking. We were supposed to value risk-taking and look for opportunities where risk could bring reward. I was always terrible at it because I would look at whether something was a good thing to do.

(Fortunately "Do the right things right" was also a value.)

I suppose the point of "risk" is not knowing the outcome, but it may still not be the best focus of decision making. This feels right. This is a good thing to do.

Things may not always go the way I would like, but as I aim for "right" and "good", I do not regret it.