Management of Measurement Constructs

It’s just a matter of time

We hear it often: “It’s just a matter of time!” –We hear its cousin equally as often, “Everything in its own time.”

I was commiserating with a man before his eye operation, and he sighed with resignation: “My daddy taught me, if you’re supposed to hang, don’t be afraid of a gunfight!”

Then there’s the lovely hopeful resignation, “Someday my prince will come!”

And how about: “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

All of these thoughts suggest a fatalism: something is due to happen a certain way, because it’s supposed to.

Even inventions —technological discoveries— seem to a special time for themselves!

Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler never met but they eachindependently produced the world’s first practical gas-powered automobile in Germany in 1885-86.

–Alexander Graham Bell of Scotland and Elisha Gray of Illinois filed patents in Washington D.C. for the telephone, invented independently (although there is argument about that), on the exact same day : February 14, 1876.

That’s why we draw charts for the first Atomic Reaction, the first flight, the first successful light from a metal filament within a glass bulb. –We are looking for a message from time.

Everything is defined by time. From the creation of our solar System, the “Big Bang theory” dated to some 13.7 billion years ago and still counting, to the pulse in our heart that confirms that we live; from the grand cycles of recorded history to a Google nanosecond of information retrieval!

And every time a client asks us “When?” we take a deep breath and earn our reputation.

–As I browse studiously through the essays … over one-quarter million words of study (see Archives following each essay in the three departments; MENU, red asterisks) … I see that we come to discussion grips with this time issue often; see particularly “Notebook”, November 30, 2008, “The Danger of being caught by SWAT … Stop-Watch Astrological Timing.”

The anxiety we feel about time is that time is smarter than we are! Time is never wrong. And all of this works within the Hollywood-manufactured mystique of fortune telling: we should know “When” … exactly … after all, we are astrologers. How smart are we?

So, on the one hand, we must answer “when” as best we can, structured within our experience over years of practice. –And on the other hand, we have to put off the fears of failure reading these messages of time.

I find that working together with the client helps a great deal, i.e., rather than performing through pronouncement. –“The probability is high for this in early December. How does that fit with the common sense projections of your real estate market? What does your realtor say?” This is the sharing of insecurity as well as the illumination that so often does click in to bring comfort, security, and fulfillment.

Or “When was the last time you had a physical check-up? Really, with the opportunities coming up as we have seen, you need to be in your best shape to make things work for you. What do you think? Room for that in your schedule?”

I find that simply saying, “I sure hope so” to the client really helps the client, helps us both. Neither of us is alone with the projection; neither of us has his life on the line with an exact pronouncement.

I know that this can sound like an astrologer protecting his position, but it isn’t. It’s practical common sense: we are recognizing the vagaries of our knowing time and, as well, acknowledging the backlog of success in grasping those vagaries. –When we go through a client’s past development, our time references are usually in blocks of a month here and there; we get a sense of pulse in development. When we go into the future, this should be the approach as well … then, together with the client, we can sharpen things with specialized measurement insights. We acknowledge what we don’t know and we magnify what we do.