Memorial Day and the Power of Perspective

Today is Memorial Day in the US—a spotlight in the calendar that forces, if we let it, a pause. For me, it’s always complicated, no matter how many times I loop through it. The impulse to barrel into the day, to treat it as another long weekend, is strong. I can’t pretend I’m immune. As a veteran, you’d think I’d find it automatic to stop and reflect, but the truth is I forget too. I need the reminders as much as anyone else. It’s too easy to skip the meaning while we juggle deadlines, backyard plans, a hundred little things. But here we are, and you’re reading this, so let’s stop together for just a minute and look wider at what this day actually asks of us—and how that same pause can help us avoid short-term engineering decisions.

I have to name it directly. It’s not my day. It’s set aside for the ones who did a job like mine but didn’t make it home. That distinction matters, and I won’t paper over it, because it keeps the practice honest and rooted.

Most years, I catch myself treating Memorial Day like ordinary time, almost forgetting what it’s really marking. It’s comfortable, even a little careless, drifting through the privilege. But none of that casualness would be possible without the work and sacrifice of the people we’re meant to remember. If you’re reading this while making weekend plans, maybe you feel it too—the ease of not having to think too hard about the cost behind ordinary freedoms.

I don’t turn it into guilt. Just a quiet moment of gratitude. Sustained gratitude is closely tied to prosocial habits—including the willingness to accept difficult circumstances without added bitterness link. That’s what steadies me—and I think it could steady you too, whatever your role or industry.

How Speed Narrows Our Judgement and How to Avoid Short-Term Engineering Decisions

It’s easy to get stuck in the grind—sprints, tickets, releases. Fast becomes our default, and suddenly we’re living inside our own narrow present instead of doing the work to avoid engineering short-termism.

I’ve spent years working this way, both as an engineer and leading teams. And honestly, it’s a trap I still fall into when the pressure ramps up. To avoid short-term engineering decisions, we have to recognize how short-cycle execution narrows our focus. We optimize for velocity, shipping the next thing, closing the ticket list down. It feels productive, but that speed hides what’s really happening around us. When our world shrinks to the immediate next step, dependencies fade from view. We miss quiet contributions, invisible support, and even the broader impact of our choices. I’ve caught myself acting as if the work starts and ends at my desk. I realized that fast rhythm breeds a subtle entitlement. We start to expect things will “just work.” That’s usually when preventable risks slip through.

Let me give a simple example. You rush a code review. It’s end of sprint, everyone’s juggling. The tests pass, you skim the diff, hit approve. But buried in the update is a dependency that nobody flagged—a fragile bit of legacy code that’s now routing requests in a way we didn’t plan for. Next week, a critical integration breaks. Suddenly you’re spending a day tracing a bug that should never have reached production. That little shortcut costs the team far more than it saves.

The same pattern hits with AI deployment. A model looks great on offline metrics, so you push it live. Only later do you realize it’s failing a minority segment because the underlying data set excluded key demographic features. No one stopped to trace which data sources flowed where, or how assumptions skewed the results. All those dependencies and contributors were hidden, and now you’re left handling reputational blowback and rushed hotfixes you could have avoided.

This is why I’m convinced: a five-minute context pause, inserted before planning, reviews, or deployment, helps broaden engineering perspective and shifts us from urgency to stewardship. You don’t lose momentum. You gain clarity about whose work, whose risks, and whose costs really shape the outcomes. Just stepping back for a moment can make the difference between a steady launch and a scrambling fix.

A Repeatable Five-Minute Pause for Wider Perspective

Step one is straightforward. Stop. Before you launch into the plan or approve the change, take just one quiet breath. Name the decision out loud—to yourself, or to your team. Then pre-commit to five minutes for the context pause. Make it quiet, not ceremonial. You don’t need a special protocol, just the mental gear shift. Taking a mindful pause doesn’t make choices easier or faster, but it anchors mindful engineering decisions that nudge us toward more open and approach-oriented choices taking a mindful pause doesn’t make choices easier or faster, but it does nudge us toward more open and approach-oriented decisions.

Step two is See. Start by listing the stakeholders—who will this decision touch? Trace the dependencies. What systems, data, hidden flows are involved? Think of the folks whose work you’re building on, including unseen contributors and non-obvious costs. Most of what we enjoy each day was built by someone we’ll never meet. A simple checklist—structured across key phases—can surface critical players and risks, supporting a habit of looking up before you act see study.

If you’re not sure how to spot dependencies, here’s what works for me. Run a quick scan with prompts. Where’s the data coming from—who owns it, and what’s its lineage? Who maintains the infra underneath? What happens if something fails? Is there a long-term risk that won’t show up until after launch? Which team inherits this change next? Even a cursory pass with these prompts tends to surface the overlooked risks and the invisible hands shaping your outcome. You don’t need a formal template—just pause and do a guided lookaround, and if you’re working with others, build an active listening rhythm and say these questions out loud. Five minutes here saves hours or days down the line.

Step three is Steward. Name one responsible action you’ll take now—or a risk you’ll accept explicitly. Then pick one thank-you or direct follow-up to close the loop. This is how you make the pause real. Action and gratitude, not just new awareness. You widen your frame and then put it to work—for yourself and for those who come next.

The Pause in Practice: Where It Fits, What It Reveals

Picture your next sprint planning. The temptation is to dive in—get everyone on the call, bang out the priorities, fill the board. But take five minutes at the very top. Ask out loud. What dependencies are crossing teams? Who do we need to check with—really check with—before we move these blocks? Which deadlines are we shoving forward that might squeeze someone else’s timeline? That brief pause directs the team’s attention to what’s not visible from the ticket list. It’s a moment to align time horizons and clear up surprises before they become blockers. I’ve found that when we do this together, those “how did we miss that?” moments get rarer—because we’re actually looking up first.

When it comes to code reviews, build your own five-minute checklist to sharpen awareness for tech leads. Start simple. Who’s stuck owning this line six months from now? Is there any observability missing that’ll make debugging a nightmare later? Are there performance or legal constraints being quietly trampled over? This tiny bit of structure stops code from being “someone else’s problem” down the line. You’re not just approving code—you’re stewarding it for whoever comes next.

Same philosophy with AI deployment. Before you push to prod, pause and check the data drift monitors, use an AI sidecar for decisions to offload option-gathering and failure-mode checks, make sure minority slice tests pass, confirm there’s a clean rollback path, and notify the teams who’ll be affected. Then ship. It’s a habit that honors the work upstream and shields you from tomorrow’s emergency. Don’t forget to look up.

Overcoming Resistance: Making the Pause Practical

I know the concern. Pausing for context can feel like yet another hurdle, something that slows us down or risks looking like a hollow ritual. But the truth is, this isn’t just “one more thing.” In my experience, a quick check-in before action serves as a guardrail, catching invisible dependencies and missteps before they become hours of rework. I’d rather spend five minutes now than scramble to diagnose failures we could have surfaced upfront.

It’s Memorial Day, and I’m pulled back into the reason for this reflection—the stakes woven into our day-to-day privileges. Stewardship isn’t just a word; it shows up in what you choose to notice and who you remember to account for, whether that’s in civic life or on the technical front lines. I see it every time I stop to name contributors, dependencies, and risks, both seen and unseen. I remember what’s easy to overlook, and I won’t take it lightly—today or any launch day.

I’d like to invite you into this habit, right now. Before your next planning session, code review, or AI deployment call, take five minutes and look for what doesn’t show up in the default agenda. See what emerges in that short pause—you might be surprised at what you find.

I’ll admit, I’m still figuring out how much pause is enough—sometimes I overdo it and the team gets restless, sometimes I undercut it and regret what slipped through. Maybe it always feels a bit unfinished. But I’d rather keep practicing than miss what matters most.