The norovirus is an RNA virus of the Caliciviridae taxonomic family, it is marked by nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, loss of appetite and other, uh, even less pleasant gastric symptoms. The norovirus is responsible for up to 90% of the non-bacterial outbreaks of gastroenteritis (the stomach flu) in the world.

Sometime last week, I was hit hard with this little bugger and somewhere between the uncontrollable shivering and the overwhelming concern I was dying is where our tale begins.

Patterns. We don’t understand we’re trapped in them, we really can’t, until something forcefully and irreconcilable pushes us out of them. That’s why alcoholics need to hit “rock bottom” before making a change, and movies always have the plucky hero’s calamity averting flash of insight come at the darkest hour.

Patterns have their upsides. When they are good, they encourage efficiency and ease the path of task fulfillment. Factories are ruled by patterns and without a solid, proven process nothing would ever get done. The problem for people whose job it is to generate creative work (entrepreneurs, artists, designers, musicians et al) is that blind reliance on pattern destroys creativity. It’s hard to find anything new on the well worn path, sometimes you just need to plow through the treeline.

For me, the norovirus was that push into the trees. Like most people who work on the web, I have a hard time seeing what life is like without constant and continuous access to information. This lack of perspective colors everything I do. Since I wasn’t able to sit up straight let alone type at a computer, I had time to take a critical look at my own process and understand some things that were working well, and some truly unnecessary drains on my time and energy.

My challenge to you is to do the same. I don’t want you to go eat bad fish, get food poisoning and contemplate Seppuku for a few days but I do want you to find your own “norovirus” something that can push you out of your pattern and give you time and perspective to see your world from another lens.

Even the best of factories can use an equipment upgrade every now and then.

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