If I can speak a single sentence in Spanish without my Cuban mother-in-law looking at me funny, I’ll consider it a success. Other reasons for the funny looks notwithstanding.

Meanwhile, I’ve been using this language app for years now, and I continue to struggle.

I don’t believe though that the trouble is the app. Certainly it’s not the be all, end all of education. It is crafted quite well, presents things very nicely, and I speak and understand a heck of a lot better than I did before using it.

So what’s the trouble?

The trouble is the measure. In studying and work and whatever endeavor we engage in, we’d like to have a way to step forward. Complete this. Do that move from here to there. Whatever it is, some measurement comes into play.

The trouble with measuring, though, is how it can disrupt and sometimes even destroy the very thing we are trying to measure. There’s a lovely quote, also known as Goodhart’s Law, which says,​

But because completion, time, characteristics, these can be measured, they become our default. Whether in learning and communications and our business transactions, we often function through measures.

Checkboxes, Burnout, and the Death of Meaning at Work

Measurements are not bad, but they are tools, and the more powerful the tool, the more caution it requires. When we’re not cautious, we don’t recognize the potential negative effects, we do so at our own peril. In fact, it may even be abused.

For example, what happens at work when we only check the boxes but do nothing else? We could argue, well, we’re getting the work done. What’s missing is the spirit, the sense of meaning, what builds from vision and life into a living result, whether product, service, or simply being present in the culture, our existence at work becomes devoid of life.

When we wonder why we’re not learning from an application, rather than aim to get through the next lesson goal, it might be more useful to consider:

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Maybe staring at a single sentence in a foreign language and consider, do I know what this means? Can I say it? Can I play with it?

Or could I use it? Does it roll off the tongue? And if not, can I make it do so? What if I played with the words and the sentences until they flowed smoothly? Can I feel the sentence, can I feel it to where I can say it without having to translate it in my mind?

All of this takes time. All of this moves us away from the measure of completing the lesson.

The mascot might get angry and still come after me. It becomes more clear how a measure can actively work against the thing it purports to support. But the milestone or measure is again, not bad in and of itself. In fact, we can now use the milestone of completing a lesson as a framework. A context of support within which we can find that life within the thing.

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• Kourosh

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PS. I’d be curious to hear of your own experience. When has a measure gotten in the way of itself for you? (Comment below)

PPS. Listen to the podcast version of this newsletter here.