For several months, I’ve been thinking about starting a blog focused on the practice and the challenge of my organizational development (OD) work, in both California, US and in Tokyo, Japan—and also, the interplay between them. I have applied “California” ideas and practices in Tokyo, and vice versa, and doing so has expanded my repertoire as a professional and as a human being. I’m passionate about this, and sense that this sort of cross-pollination is exactly what we mean when we talk about “globalization” in the most positive sense. So you’d think that with all of this “fire in the belly” that I would be unstoppable at the keyboard.

And yet, for several months now I have been unable to get even one satisfactory word written.

Every time I sat down to write, something would get written, but it sounded stilted. Or vapid. I worried that maybe it would be misconstrued. Maybe I wasn’t being “bicultural” enough. Then a cascade of “what ifs?” (none of them good, btw) would storm my neural net, until with a sigh, I hit “delete” once again and closed the cover of my lap top.

In a Tokyo café today with a good friend, talking about my “deer in headlights” reaction to starting this blog, it hit me. What I am experiencing is actually a microcosm. In the last few years, we’ve had a global financial crisis that has forced many people and organizations to die to the life they once led, start again, and create some kind of “new normal.”   Especially here in Japan, the “reset” button was hit in a dramatic, punishing way on March 11, 2011.

I look around globally, nationally, organizationally, individually and see that for many if not all of us, circumstances are forcing us to engage, to start (and restart) in ways that we have never experienced, and never could have anticipated.

On the one hand, a clean slate is exciting. But let’s face it: (re)starting is hard. Yes, it is full of potential, but it is also full of uncertainty. It is scary–even when you have skills to share, and when there is a need for your contribution. And maybe even especially when your survival depends on it.

I couldn’t start this blog because I didn’t know exactly where it might take me. I know I’ll write about the polarities between California and Tokyo, through the eyes of an OD consultant and coach. These are the polarities that have excited and confounded me, and these are the polarities that I think we all–every nation, organization, and individual– must dance with if we hope to survive and thrive.

I have plenty of experiences, some successes, and many observations and questions to put out there. I could wait to “start” until I know exactly where I’m going and how to get there, or, I could just…start.

I’ll bet I’m not the only one–what have you been waiting to start?