Getting stuck in exactly the problems you can't yet solve

Everyone, inexorably, gets themselves stuck in exactly the sorts of situations they're capable of getting themselves into and not capable of getting themselves out of.

lisatomic @lisatomic5 · Sep 8, 2020

I am torn equally between: “You are only in this situation because you are horrible at this exact sort of work!” and “You are only in this situation because you are excellent at this sort of work!” Hmm how do these both feel true 🤔

Sep 9, 2020

In this sense, the Peter Principle is a law of nature. > the tendency in most organizational hierarchies is for every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach a level of respective incompetence. It's only cynical without the possibility of learning.

When oriented towards learning, there's a figure ground shift where none of your problems are problematic (in the sense that you shouldn't have them). They are, in fact, exactly the problems you don't know how to solve yet, so of course you have them! malcolmocean.com/2017/11/transc…

Haha I tweeted about this before:

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean · Nov 7, 2019

We find our way into situations that touch all of our oldest fears, and then it's really hard to find our way out because those fears represent exactly the sorts of situations we don't know how to get out of.