
Bricks, Bricklaying and Guardrails
In F3, we define Guardrails as foundational precepts that protect and Incentivize Acceleration to Advantage. Guardrails are constructed of Routines, which are compilations of positive habits that are ingrained into a man’s life. We call these habits Bricks and the act of weaving them together into routines Bricklaying.
For a man to Accelerate in his life he must have strong Guardrails
In fact, the faster he moves, the stronger his Guardrails need to be because speed increases Pain, Chaos and the risk of Failure. Of course, that risk could always be reduced by decreasing Momentum. If the speed limit were five miles an hour, there would be very few accidents, but very little would be accomplished because nobody would be moving fast enough to get anything done.
There is always a trade-off in every human endeavor between potential Advantage and the risk of Pain, Chaos and Failure
Because he lacks the Commitment required to accept that risk, the Mascot finds himself continuously Decelerating. In contrast, the HIM accepts that Acceleration is always accompanied by Pain, Chaos and potential Failure and seeks to find the right tension between that risk and the speed of his life by engaging in constant Bricklaying. He does this to become more Durable in the face of Pain and Chaos and to ameliorate the damage that may result from the Failures he expects.
Just as a traffic engineer knows that guardrails are unnecessary along straight patches of level road, the HIM doesn’t bother much with Guardrails in the areas of his life where Failure is unlikely. Instead, he does his Bricklaying where the danger is. If he has chosen correctly, those Guardrails will be battered because they are doing their job in keeping him out of the ditch.
Maintaining clean and pristine Guardrails is like looking for your lost car keys where the light is good rather than where you probably lost them. It’s just for show. It’s what a Mascot would do. A HIM’s Guardrails are neither clean nor pristine.
They are dirty, scraped and battered from use—just like the HIM himself
Comments