There is one last connecting thread among this post's examples that might resonate better with you, dear reader - the difficulty in executing a passive rather than active intervention. This is a question that goes beyond the ultimately mundane matter of whether we are always working in the smartest possible way - it's a fundamental question of how our behavior builds into a sense of identity and whether doing (seemingly) nothing sufficiently reinforces this feeling.
Although the challenges specific to a doctor, a project manager, or a marketing director may bear little resemblance to one another, there is the shared difficulty of standing by and doing nothing in an area where your interventions prove expertise or authority. What kind of doctor keeps their job if they prescribe no treatments? Who would hire a project manager with an aversion to sending follow up emails? Where can I find a marketing team actively seeking the evidence that their campaigns have the same effect as a blank space? Maybe the deepest wisdom of all is that in prescribing leech therapy yesterday's doctors revealed something armchair experts like me are too eager to forget - in an uncertain world where progress often means two steps forward and one step back, the only thing we know when we don't know is that you have to keep moving.
