Life is a series of loose ends… was a comment I read. I’m not too certain what the author meant since it must have been a throw away line but I was intrigued. If we accept the comment as accurate then how we live with our loose ends says a great deal about who we are. Do ‘loose ends’ need tying up or are they suppose to stay… loose? And how do you determine if and which ends need tying? It could end up destroying whatever you are doing if you tie the wrong ends together.?
There are a variety of reasons why you may be facing a loose end: loss of funding or other resources, new information changes what you are doing, etc. But what do you do? Some people would push on regardless, some will be able to quickly adjust and leave the loose end, some like closure and will attempt to find a way to facilitate this. Just as there are a variety of reasons causing loose ends, there are a variety of approaches to deal with it. The least effective tends to be to continue doing what you currently are… regardless.
Again I think it’s the how you react to loose ends – but what if you have absolutely no decision-making input, when you aren’t ‘leader’? How you respond to the person-in-charge again says a great deal about who you are. Your level of personal investment in what you’re doing impacts on your reactions. Whatever decision the leader makes, can you offer your suggestions… will you? Equally important is when you are the leader – do you help the rest of the team resolve the pre-mature end?
Loose ends can be very frustrating… especially when you are a ‘closure’ type. For those who need closure, you may have to develop other coping skills when no closure appears to be forthcoming. The issue really is to know what you can do when there is an abrupt stop in what you are doing. Are you prepared to ‘let go’ of the work you have already done and switch gears? Loose ends really are a fact of life – you determine how you resolve them.
