Kathryn Atkins

I took Seth Godin’s altMBA class. It had been on my list since 2017! Yay. I finally took it. Check.

I wanted a one-and-done. I wanted the magic ticket from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The golden ring on the Merry Go Round. You’d think I was old enough to know that checking a box and doing the work are two different things. I checked the box.

The checked box stares at me. I stare back. We know one of us will lose.
“I have to go on to the next box,” I say.
The box says nothing. Of course. Boxes can’t talk. But, if it could talk it would say, “You know, you’re not done yet.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you have just started.”
The box goes silent, as boxes do. I’m thrashed by a stupid box into stunned, meditative silence. I look out the window. I glance at the floor, my dog, and my computer screen. It’s right. The crazy inanimate lame little box has a brain around the checkmark that taunts me as if to say, “Do you want to uncheck this box? What about putting a question mark here?”

Oh. My. God. Maybe there’s power here. Maybe, just maybe, we have chanced on a tool to cause pause. A tiny flick of a mark on the page can change the way we think about the important stuff.

Checking boxes is fun, but is it right?