Thoughts on Improvement

Recently, I’ve been faced with the challenge of improving. Improvement works in a funny way. At first, improving is easy, it comes naturally, and it feels weird not to have improvement. Shortly thereafter though, Improvement becomes something almost to be avoided. I’ve noticed this mainly because I feel like I may have been avoiding improvement.

Improvement avoidance comes in at a certain time, right after you get comfortable with where you are. Let’s take UTV62.com as an example. I had gotten into a groove with it, spending only few hours on it every week, to rip the NAULive! DVD and put the new episode on the web site, with the occasional dose of “removing old stuff from the web site because we’ve reached our quota.” Doing it this way is fine in some ways, it lets me focus on doing the NAULive! episodes really nicely, but as a result of having gotten myself into that rut, the UTV62 homepage has found itself in similar rut. It has become stale, when it was once fresh and kept moderately up to date.

Another area for Improvement has been my relationship with Megan. The problem here is that I’m simply not sure what the next step should be. I know that there is one, but what is it? On the other hand, what I have to wonder is whether or not that’s a situation that even demands improvement. If the relationship is fine where it is, then maybe I should wait on improvement until it becomes “not so fine.”

I’ve also noticed a bit of an improvement rut at the helpdesk. We spent the first half of the semester continuously improving, and now that it’s near the end of the semester, improvement seems impossible. I am tempted to say that I’ve even seen some people’s performance slip downhill, because they’re comfortable with where they’re at.

I’ve decided that this is one of the main reasons I am here at Northern Arizona University, taking classes, and going beyond what is required of me by joining student organizations such as UTV62, and having a job at the helpdesk. By doing this, I’m improving, and that’s what I need to remember when I am in danger of getting into an improvement rut.