Steven Johnson

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The assumption I most often have to dismantle is that this should be over by a particular date, and that a date can be calculated from the size of the event. People arrive having done that arithmetic and concluded they are overdue. The arithmetic does not work. A transition takes as long as it takes to rebuild whatever it disrupted, which depends entirely on how much was disrupted rather than on how the event would be described to a stranger. We work from what actually got disturbed. That usually explains the timeline far better than the size of the event ever could. I have watched people torment themselves with calendars they invented. Nobody else is holding them to it. If you have decided you are overdue, that calculation is worth examining before you accept it. Extent matters a whole lot more than the headline does.