I pulled through a drive-through restaurant while traveling. The employee handed me a number and asked me to pulled forward. I hadn’t noticed the cars ahead of me still waiting for food until then. I thought they had pulled ahead after receiving their food and exited. There was a curve in the line, so most were hidden. I was supposed to put the sticky note number on my car, so the person delivering the food when ready would know which order belonged to which car. It was obvious they’d used this system for a while, and it worked well.
But there was a slight problem. I apparently was not smart enough to attach a sticky note to my car. Oh, I understand sticky notes. I am even a bit obsessed with sticky notes. I understand where they should and shouldn’t be placed on a car. However, my sticky note seemed backward to me. The sticky strip was on the front of the note, the same side as the number.
If I placed the number sticky side against the car, the number was hidden. I quickly played several possibilities in my mind before realizing I might not use it the way it was intended, but I could get creative and solve the problem. I folded the sticky portion back and stuck it to my mirror, so the number was easy to see for any employee exiting the door to find the correct car.
I wondered if a stack of the sticky notes was faulty, or did I simply not understand the application? It wasn’t extremely important, but it reminded me of the tendency to get stuck. It might be a situation in which we lack understanding or patience. We might get confused or frustrated. We might blame others or give up. We can get stuck in the situation without finding a way forward.
Of course, it rarely has to do with a sticky note. We get stuck in many situations. We can’t find a way forward, or perhaps we don’t even try. Maybe we like where we’re stuck. Sometimes we simply blame others. And then there are the times we’re stuck because we’re overwhelmed. It all becomes too much.
And sometimes we can use the stickiness even if we don’t understand it. We can let it work for us, bend it the way it will help most, and move forward in a way that might not be the perfect solution but is sufficient.
Sufficient is literally enough. And sometimes the standard of adequate is just what we need to move forward.
Pure Purpose 