Adversity: Dealing with it

 ADVERSITY: Dealing with it

Mario D’Couto

            Rolf Dobelli in his book, “The Art of Thinking Clearly” writes the following, “On a scale of 1 to 10 how good do you feel today? Now consider what would bring you up to a perfect 10. That vacation in the Caribbean you always dreamed of? A step up the career ladder maybe? Next question: what would make you drop down by the same number of points? Paralysis, Alzheimer’s, cancer, depression, war, hunger, torture, financial ruin, damage to your reputation, losing your best friend, your children getting kidnapped, blindness, death? The long list of possibilities make us realize just how many obstacles to happiness exist; in short, there are more bad things than good – and they are far more consequential.

In our evolutionary past, this was even more the case. One stupid mistake and you were dead. Everything could lead to your rapid departure from the game of life – carelessness during the hunt, an inflamed tendon, exclusion from the group and so on. Those who were reckless died before they could pass their genes on to the next generation. Those who remained, the cautious, survived. We are their descendants.”

If you have read my previous post/reflection, “Adversity – Putting the problem in perspective” [https://insightsfromacommonman.blogspot.com/2021/11/adversity-putting-problem-in-perspective.html] we had seen why adversity is probably necessary and could actually be beneficial for us on the flip side although looking at the above statement, it would seem that we fear loss more than we value gain. But why? Social scientists call this the loss aversion. For example, losing 100 dollars cost us a greater amount of happiness than the delight of having someone give us 100 dollars. In fact, it has been proven that emotionally, a loss ‘weighs’ about twice that of similar gain.

At the same time, when faced with a crisis, a situation, or a problem, there is that sense of urgency that one must act and while it may seem like the right thing to do, it may not always be helpful. To illustrate this point, consider the following examples,

1.      In a penalty shootout in soccer (football), the ball
takes less than 0.3 second to travel from the player who kicks the ball to the goal. There is not enough time for the goalkeeper to watch the ball’s trajectory. He must take a decision before the ball is kicked. Soccer players who take penalty kicks shoot one third of the time at the middle of the goal, one third of the time at the left and one third of the time at the right. Surely, goalkeepers have spotted this but what do they do? They dive either to the left or to the right. Rarely do they just stand in the middle – even through roughly a third of all the shots land there. Why on earth would they want to jeopardize saving these penalties? The simple answer is appearance. It looks more impressive and feels less embarrassing to dive to the wrong side than to freeze on the spot and watch the ball sail past. This is what is known as the action bias, even if it achieves nothing. This study comes from the Israeli psychologist Michael Bar – Eli, who evaluated hundreds of penalty shoot – outs.

2.      Like the goalkeepers, many investors when starting out can’t yet judge the stock market, so they compensate with a sort of hyperactivity. Of course, this is a waste of time as Charlie Munger sums up his approach to investing, “We’ve got to have discipline in avoiding just doing any darn thing just because you can’t stand inactivity.”

            These are just two examples but it only goes to show how sometimes we can be so uncomfortable with silence and inactivity in many other aspects of life also. Probably the reason for this kind of behaviour (as seen in what was said by Dobelli earlier in the post) dates back to our old hunter – gatherer environment, where action triumphed over reflection. Lightning – fast reactions were essential to survival; deliberation could be fatal. When our ancestors saw a silhouette appear at the edge of the forest – something that looked like a sabre – tooth tiger, they did not sit down to muse over what it might be. They had to act quick. We are the descendants of the quick responders. Back then, it was better to run away. However, our world today is different; it rewards reflection even though our instincts may suggest otherwise.

            The funny thing is that although we now value contemplation more highly, outright inaction remains a cardinal sin. When such a thing happens, you get no honour, no medal, no status with your name on it if you make exactly the right decision by waiting – for the good of the company, the state, even humanity. On the other hand, if you demonstrate decisiveness and quick judgment and the situation improves (which in most cases is coincidental), it’s quite possible your boss or even the mayor, will shake your hands. Society at large still prefers rash actions to a sensible wait – and – see strategy. But, of course, such an approach does not always work.

 

           While the action bias causes us to offset a lack of clarity with futile hyperactivity, the other extreme would be omission bias, where failing to act could have averted a future misfortune. So while some may be tempted to point that if you are not part of the solution, you’ve part of the problem and actions are more noticeable than inaction, wisdom calls for prudence which involves doing the right thing at the right place and at the right time and that comes when we think before we act. Thus as a rule of thumb, if a situation is unclear, hold back until you are able to evaluate your options as Blaise Pascal once wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from the human person’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone” besides haste makes waste.

          Today, there seems to be an awareness more than ever about the need of a healthy diet and following an exercise routine to maintain a healthy lifestyle and yet sometimes what we consume mentally gets overlooked in the bargain. Thich Nhat Hanh would put it this way, “Before we can make deep changes in our lives, we have to look into our diet, our way of consuming. We have to live in such a way that we stop consuming the things that poison us and intoxicate us. Then we will have the strength to allow the best in us to arise and we will no longer be victims of anger, of frustration.” Thus, as a saying goes, “Garbage in, garbage out”, just as consuming unhealthy food causes damage to our bodies physically, consuming or letting in unhealthy, pessimistic, negative thoughts into our minds not only cause damage to our souls but perhaps to our entire well – being. If you are already defeated in your mind, you may as well consider yourself defeated.

            The music we listen to, what we read, the television programs we watch, the conversations we indulge in and so on, all shape our character and have an effect on us either directly or indirectly. Piece by piece, like adding bricks to making a building, we construct our lives with external sources. The question is, are we building our lives into a self – defeating being like Frankenstein’s monster or are we feeding our minds with things that will make us productive, resourceful and resilient?

 

             There’s a joke about a drunk man searching under the street lamp. When a cop asked him what he was searching for, he said that he was searching for his keys. When asked about where he had lost it, he mentioned that it was in a place, about two blocks away. When asked again by the cop why he was searching under the street lamp rather than in the place where he had lost it, he said that the light was better in this place (under the street lamp). 

 

    

            Sometimes we are like that drunk man. When faced with adversity, we are looking for solutions in the wrong places or sometimes, as Einstein put it, we do the same thing again and again and expect different results. It’s like the kid doing his jigsaw puzzle. If a piece doesn’t fit but looks like it should fit, pushing it harder is not going to help. No amount of pressure is going to turn it into the right piece magically. If you’re looking in the wrong place, you’ll never find the solution to your problem.

 

           Having said that, we can also go on to say that there are two main reasons as to why a person fails repeatedly despite trying harder and harder. One is that a person can be egoistic to the extent that he/she wants to show that he/she can get through by their own effort or that they just don’t want to admit or accept that there is something wrong with themselves or with what they are doing. The other reason is that they don’t even realize they have a problem or are not aware of it. If a person who denies he/she is sick, no cure or remedy is possible. When either of this happen, the problems persists not inspite of the effort but because of it. The solution has become the problem. If it’s not working, stop doing it! You don’t achieve anything by persisting. This realization can come about only when we have taken the time to think on how we want to react to a given situation which happens only when our minds are still.

            As James Mattis once said, “Solitude allows you to reflect while others are reacting. We need solitude to refocus on prospective decision – making rather than just reacting to problems as they arise”, it seems as though in our society today, the fast paced lives we live in, with all the demands that come along with it, we don’t have enough silence in our lives because we don’t have enough solitude and we don’t get enough solitude because we don’t actively seek out or cultivate silence. Because of this vicious cycle, some of our potential good ideas or solutions to our problems can get stifled which can come about as a result of solitude.

            Solitude is not just for hermits but it is a necessity for the healthy and proper functioning of any human person. As tough as it may seem to get such moments given the crazy, hectic lives we live, we need to schedule, cultivate and grab such moments nonetheless, whenever the opportunity arises which is based on discipline. Besides, good decisions cannot be and are not made by those who are running from pillar to post or living life superficially on the surface as Edward Gibbon would put it, “If solitude is the school of the genius then the crowded busy world is the purgatory of the idiot.” At the same time while thought is important, we should be careful not to fall into the trap of overthinking where our thoughts paralyze us from taking any action. What’s important is to focus on what is within our control and to do the best we can. Stillness is what helps empty the mind which in turn helps us to think clearly on what really matters, what is within our control and to give to our full focus to it.

            Journaling is a great way to clear the mind. There’s no right way or wrong way. How you journal is much less important than why you are doing it which brings me to the reasons as to why journaling is beneficial: it helps get something off our chest; it helps us to have some quiet time with our thoughts; it helps us to clarify those thoughts; and it helps to separate the harmful from the insightful. So start journaling; you have nothing to lose.

            Besides these, journaling is also a good way to ask tough questions, questions such as,

Ø  Where am I standing in my own way?

Ø  Why am I so worked up about this?

Ø  What blessings can I count right now?

Ø  Why do I care so much about impressing people?

Ø  What is the harder choice I’m avoiding?

Ø  Do I rule my focus or do they rule me?

Ø  How will today’s difficulties reveal my character?

            Even from a scientific standpoint, journaling helps improve well – being after traumatic and stressful events. For example, a study done at the University of Arizona show that the people were better able to recover from divorce and move forward if they journaled on their experience. Keeping a journal is a common recommendation from psychologists as well because it helps patients stop obsessing and allows them to make sense of the many inputs – emotional, external, psychological, - that would otherwise overwhelm them.

            So instead of carrying the baggage around in our heads or hearts, we put it down on paper. Instead of letting racing thoughts run unchecked or leaving half – baked assumptions unquestioned, we force ourselves to write and examine them. Putting our own thinking down on paper lets us see it from a distance. It gives us the objectivity that is so often missing when anxiety, fears and frustrations flood our minds. It is a break from the world, a framework for the day ahead, a coping mechanism for troubles of the hours past and a renewing of our creative juices for relaxing and clearing our minds.

            With that being said, let’s now move on to the next segment which is action. While no doubt, having a clear mind is crucial to problem solving or dealing with adversity, it would be incomplete without acting upon what you want to achieve. Planning without execution is as good as doing nothing.

            Speaking of planning, there’s a saying, “If you try to catch two rabbits at the same time, you will catch neither of them.” Saying ‘yes’ to one thing is in essence saying ‘no’ to something else and vice versa where saying ‘no’ to something opens up opportunities to other things like for example, choosing not to spend money on product A gives you the room to spend that same money on product B or C which could be more worthwhile and it’s the same with many other aspects of life. To add to that, it may be more important to write down what NOT TO pursue in life. In other words, when you come across things or ideas or other people who tell you what you should or should not do, you need to compare it with the list you have made, the not – to – pursue list. This will not only keep you from trouble but it would also save you lots of thinking time. So think hard once and then just consult your list instead of having to make up your mind whenever something new shows up. Charlie Munger explains it best in the following words, “You have to stick with what I call your circle of competence. You have to know what you understand and what you don’t understand. It’s not important how big the circle is but it is important that you know where the perimeter is. So you have to figure out what your aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have aptitudes and you don’t, you’re going to lose. And that’s as close to certain as any prediction that you can make. You have to figure out what you’ve got an edge and you’ve got to play within your own circle of competence.” Another way is to create what I call, “Maintaining your external and internal score card” where the external score card involves what society or others think or say about you while your internal score card involves what you think about yourself and your core belief system.

            Having established what is it that is important to you and what you want to achieve, the next thing is preparing for it. Ever heard of the phenomenon of the Black Swan? Basically what it refers to is something improbable or uncertain and yet while these two words mostly hold a negative connotation as in the case of an unknown catastrophe which could be a high possibility, the phenomenon of the black swan can imply positive things to. The word ‘Black Swan’ was taken from an incident that happened in the life of the Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh where he spotted a black swan on an expedition trip to Australia in 1697. To provide some context to this, it was held and believed that swans were white. So to spot and find a black swan was something out of the blue.

            Applying the phenomenon of the black swan in our context, our brains evolved to help hunt and gather. Back in the Stone Age, we hardly ever encountered anything truly extraordinary. The deer that was chased may have been a bit faster or slower, sometimes a little bit fatter or thinner. Everything revolved around a stable mean which is to say that everything followed a more or less standard procedure. Other than being on the watch to take care of yourself from becoming a prey, life was pretty basic back then. Today is different. With one breakthrough you can increase your income by a factor of 10,000. When we think about celebrities, star athletes or CEO’s whether it is Larry Page, Usain Bolt, George Soros, J.K Rowling, Bono and so on, such fortunes did not exist previously, peaks of this size were unknown. Only in the most recent of human history has this been possible.

            So what can be done? Put yourself in situation where you can catch a ride on a positive Black Swan (as unlikely as that is). Become an artist, inventor or entrepreneur with a scalable product. If you sell your time or expertise be it as an employee, dentist, journalist or any other type of procession, you are waiting in vain for such a break. But even if you feel compelled to continue as such, avoid surroundings where negative Black Swans thrive. This means, staying out of debt, invest your savings as conservatively as possible and get used to a modest standard of living – no matter whether your breakthrough comes or not. This can be seen in other scenarios as well whether it is a loss of job, a break up, the death of a loved one and so on.

 

           The thing is life is never a straight line and there would be bumps and obstacles to encounter. All we can do is to be prepared. As seen earlier, when tragedy or adversity strikes, most of us respond to such events with a sudden spike in arousal that disturbs our thoughts and actions and throws us off course, sometimes to the point where we can’t recover. ‘He lost his composure’ is the way a sports analyst would describe a golfer who can’t recover from a terrible fluke shot. So expect the unexpected or anticipate the unexpected. It can protect you from a pressure surge by allowing you to prepare for and thus be less startled by the unexpected. Instead of your heart rate zooming and your actions becoming impulsive, you will be able to maintain your composure and continue your task to the best of your capability.

            Anticipating glitches enables you to work out responses in advance and build your confidence by practicing or mentally rehearsing them. It also teaches you to be adaptive and flexible when faced with any form of adversity or high – pressure situation. Knowing that you can adapt to changing circumstances provides you with a sense of control, no matter what happens. Anticipating and rehearsing a response eliminates panic as a saying goes, “Chance favours the prepared mind.”

 

           The Stoics would put it in what is called “premeditatio malorum” which basically means the premeditation of evils. A writer like Seneca for example (who belonged to the Stoics), would begin by reviewing or rehearsing his plan, say, to take a trip and then he would go over in his head (or in writing), the things that could go wrong or prevent it from happening: a storm could arise, the captain could fall ill, the ship could be attacked by pirates and so on.

            He once wrote to a friend, “Nothing happens to the wise man against his expectations nor do all things turn out for him as he wished but as he reckoned – and above all he reckoned that something could block his plans.”  The worst thing that can happen is not something going wrong but something going wrong and catching you by surprise. Why? Because unexpected failure is discouraging and being beaten in such situations hurts even more than where you already seen it coming. The person who has rehearsed in his/her mind about what could go wrong will not be caught by surprise. The person who has anticipated setbacks, obstacles or disappointments won’t be subdued. He/she will have the strength to bear it. Such a person is not likely to get discouraged or shirk from the task that lies before them or make a mistake in the face of it.

            When we anticipate, we have the time to raise defenses or even avoid them entirely. Anticipation doesn’t magically make things easier but through it, we are prepared for them to be as hard as they need to be, as hard as they actually are. In other words, we are like runners who train on hills or at an altitude which puts us in a better position to beat those runners who expected the course to be flat. Such an attitude may cause some people to think of you as a pessimist but so what? It’s better to meditate on what could happen, to probe for weakness in our plans, so whenever or if such inevitable failures occur, they can be correctly perceived, appropriately addressed or simply endured, as a quote goes,

“Beware the calm before the storm

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

The worst is yet to come

It gets worse before it gets better”

            Thus as a Spartan proverb goes, “The more you sweat in training, the less you will bleed in battle”, we strengthen ourselves during the good times so that we can fall back on it during the difficult times. It is in such times that we build our inner fortress so that it may protect us when things don’t go our way.

            When ESPN New York talk show host Michael Kay asked two time Super Bowl champion quarterback Eli Manning, “Is handling pressure (to which we can also add adversity) in your genes?” this is what he said, “No, it’s because I practiced the plays thousands of times in all different scenarios … In pressure situations, I never think of failing. I think of all the past times, I have succeeded.” There are many things in life that are unpredictable and many things in life which are not within our control but what we do have control over is ourselves, we have control over our minds. We can think, act and finally adjust to a world that is inherently unpredictable, a world that we have no complete control over. The will is what prepares us for, protects us against and allows us to thrive and be happy inspite of the adversity we may face.

            One of the most difficult skills to learn in sports is how to forget what happened a minute ago and to concentrate only on what’s happening right now. A batter in baseball has to focus on every pitch and has about a second to decide whether to swing or not. If his mind is on the last pitch (the one he swung at and missed), he will be unable to give his full attention to the ball that’s coming at him the next moment. Even in other sports, as in for instance, tennis players and golfers who get down on themselves after a lousy shot, promptly muff the next shot as well. Or if a football (soccer) or basketball player is going to brood over the fact that the other team has scored against his or her team, they would probably concede more goals or baskets.

            Living in the moment is a life skill and it applies to all aspects of life and not just sports. It is a skill worth learning. Letting go of past thinking and behaviour patterns is mandatory if you’re going to make changes in your life. People usually end up in losing games because their losing games are often tied to stories they tell themselves. There’s nothing wrong with remembering the past. It’s just when you get stuck in the past that it becomes a problem, a losing game. It is not your destiny to simply repeat the past over and over. If your past has been upsetting or painful, don’t regret the past, just learn from it. Then move on and make each day a new opportunity to rewrite your own personal history. I would also like to add that relying or gloating over past glories or successes isn’t helpful either as every day is a new day with new opportunities. Just because one were successful in the past does not mean he/she would be successful again unless if the effort is put in and the consistency is maintained.

            Conventional wisdom tells us that the past determines the present. In other words, everything that is happening now (where you live, who you know, what job you do, how you behave) is a result of previous events. This linear view is how people tell stories, study history and explain current situations. Classical psychiatry was built on this premise that exploring the past provides clues as to why person behaviour or think as they do now.

 

           While it appears logical that the present is shaped by the past, it’s not always helpful to think in those terms. After all, since the past has already happened, it cannot be changed. So if the past governs the present, it follows that the present cannot be altered either. Letting the past determine the present is like driving a car in which the entire windshield is replaced by a rear – view mirror. Can you imagine steering your car without being able to see what’s ahead of you? Where all you can see is where you have been, living your life looking backward doesn’t make sense. Granted, looking back can be a source of guidance, a gathering of experiences from which to learn but even those lessons should not be relied on exclusively, besides, insight without action is useless. If you don’t learn from your past and don’t take action to change or if you keep repeating the same mistakes from the past, you may as well be dead. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, two great economic psychologists, said it so well in their classic analysis of the psychology of risk, “A person who has not made peace with his losses is likely to accept gambles that would be unacceptable to him otherwise.” It is indeed liberating and exciting to know that your present does not have to be simply a continuation of your past. Just a change in mind – set can begin the process.

            Focusing exclusively on what is in our power magnifies and enhances our chances of doing better or being better but every ounce of energy directed at things we can’t influence or that is not within our control is energy wasted.

            To argue, to complain or worse to give up, those are choices that more often than not, do nothing to help us. On other hand, to see an obstacle as a challenge and to make the best of it, that too is a choice and it can do wonders if we take it seriously and try to implement it.

            Plutarch once said, “Wise men are able to make a fitting use even of their enemies” and the same could be said about the obstacles and adversities that one comes across. This in other words means using such incidents against themselves. Perhaps a good rule of thumb, whenever confronted with adversity or an obstacle would be is to ask one’s self, ‘What good can come out of this situation?’ or ‘How can I turn things round?’ which kind of reminds me of what Robert Kiyosaki wrote in his book, “Rich dad, poor dad” that when you say, “I can’t afford it”, you are solidifying the positions of the obstacle in front of you while if you say, “How can I afford it?” you are opening up the doors to other alternatives which can beneficial. Ryan Holiday in his book, “The Obstacle is the Way” explains this in the following words, “Ordinary people shy away from negative situations just as they do with failure. They do their best to avoid trouble. What great people do is the opposite. They are their best in such situations. They turn personal tragedy or misfortune – really anything, everything – to their advantage. But the crisis in front of you? You’re wanting it, feeling sorry for yourself, feeling tired or disappointed. You forget that life speeds on the bold and favours the brave. We sit and complain that we’re not being given opportunities or chances but we are.” Thus when we reframe the challenge and triumph over the challenge, the adversity that we face or the obstacle that crosses our path becomes a springboard to success.

            Life seems easy when the going is good. But often we have to perform our best when we are feeling our worst. The time to work even harder is when the chips are down and when we are sad, sick or hurting. It takes mental toughness as it is that which enables us to see the long – term rather than be put – off by short term pain. Once you have cultivated such toughness, you have gained the winning edge.

            Mental strength lies in the ability to consciously place yourself in a vulnerable position, taking risks and getting out of your comfort zone. The result is that you change your status from being a spectator to being a player. Mental toughness helps you make the right decisions even though they may not be the most pleasant as Sophocles once said, “Heaven never helps the man who will not act.”

            Focusing on what is within your control, on what is within your power, developing the mental toughness, the grit to endure adversity builds confidence. Dr. Abdul Kalam would put it the following way, “Just as an umbrella can’t stop the rain, so is it the with confidence. It may not bring success but it would give us the power to face any challenge in life.” Optimists believe that good times will persist and that bad times are only a temporary condition. Because of this belief, optimists are more likely to try harder in difficulty times; their past successes allow them to expect that they can repeat their success. Believing that bad times are temporary makes it easier for optimists to bounce back from setbacks, to fight through difficult times – they believe there is light at the end of the tunnel. In other words, they are resilient.

 

           On the other hand, for the pessimist, bad times are thought to be long – lasting or permanent. As a result, the individual gives up more easily and often develops feelings of helplessness. In extreme cases, he or she can become clinically depressed. Thus, as a saying goes, “Forewarned is forearmed”, we shall now look at some of the practical ways by which we can achieve it.

            We are all creatures of habit. We are what we repeatedly do. In as much as anticipating glitches, setbacks and adversities are important, putting ourselves in the ‘zone’ (for the lack of a better word) to face it would not be possible, especially when it comes unexpected. It is no wonder people in the military and even athletes train so much to deal with such things, for you never know when or from where the next bullet could hit you nor can you ever underestimate your opponent.

            The psychologist William James spoke about making habits our ally instead of our enemy that we can build around us a day and a life that is moral, ordered and still, which in doing so, creates a kind of bulwark against the chaos of the world and frees up the best of ourselves for the work we do. He explains this in the following words,

“For this, we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions we can and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automation, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision and for whom the lighting of every year, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day and the beginning of every bit of work, are subject of express volitional deliberation.”

            When we not only automate and routinize the trivial parts of life but also make automatic good and virtuous decisions, we free up resources to do more important and meaning exploration. We buy room for peace and stillness and thus make good works and thoughts accessible and inevitable. One person who comes to mind in this regard is Winston Churchill. Paul Johnson, one of Churchill’s best biographers would write, “The balance he maintained between flat – out work and creative and restorative leisure is worthy a study of anyone holding a top position.” As a seventeen year old, decades before his own career as a writer, Johnson met Churchill on the street and shouted to him, “Sir, to what do you attribute your success in life?” to which Churchill replied, “Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down and never sit down when you can lie down.” As a writer, he was gaspingly productive. While holding office Churchill manage to publish seven books between 1898 and the end of World War I alone. How did he do it? How did he manage to pull so much out of himself? The simple answer: physical routine. Ryan Holiday explains Churchill’s routine in his book, “Stillness is the key”, “Each morning, Churchill got up around 8 and took his first bath, which he entered at 98 degrees and had cranked up to 104 which he sat and occasionally somersaulted in it. Freshly bathed, he would spend the next 2 hours reading. Then he responded to his daily mail, mostly pertaining to his political duties. Around noon, he’d stop to say hello to his wife for this first time (during the day) – believing all his life that the secret to a happy marriage was that spouses should not see each until noon. Then he tackled whatever writing project he was working on – likely an article or a speech or a book. By early afternoon, he would be writing at a fantastic dip and then abruptly stop for lunch. After lunch he would go for walk around Chartwell, his estate in the English countryside, feeding his swans and fish which to him was the most important and enjoyable part of the day. Then he would sit on the porch and take in the air, thinking and musing. For inspiration and serenity he might recite poetry to himself. At 3 p.m., it was time for a two hour nap. After the nap, it was family time and a second bath followed by dinner (after 8 p.m.). After dinner and drinks, one more writing sprint before bed.”

            Now not many of us would be able to have the luxury, the privilege or the facility to make or implement such a routine due to various reasons but here’s the point, discipline, is how we maintain freedom and good habits are a safe haven of certainty.

  

          The benefit of having a routine is that it makes following or being disciplined easier. Sometimes or most often, we may have to force ourselves to do something due to whatever reasons or excuses we may have but making a routine leads to the formation of a habit and then that leads to being more disciplined about it.

            In this regard, it is also important to be careful not to confuse a routine with a ritual. A routine is a wonderful way to get you the ideal psychological and physiological position to deliver your best effort. A ritual on the other hand is a mindless activity that is expected to bring you luck. If your routine ever becomes an empty ritual, develop a new routine.

            There are some people who would want to sneer thinking that routine could lead to become a ritual but that definitely isn’t the case as tennis legend Rafael Nadal explains, “If I were superstitious, why would I keep doing the same thing over and over whether I win or lose? It’s a way of placing myself in a match, ordering my surroundings to match the order I seek in my head” who himself followed a routine where he would drink water and a recovery drink in the same order and then set them in a perfect arrangement.

            Another word used to describe this is consistency. As Robin Sharma once said, “Consistency begets mastery”, consistency is value – based behaviour. It is not repeating the same behaviour all the time. It means behaving in the same way under similar situations. Consistency leads to reliability. If under ten similar situations, a person behaves in ten different ways – he becomes unpredictable and in turn – unreliable. This is erratic behaviour and such a person cannot be trusted. Consistency in behaviour reflects one’s sense of values. It helps us avoid confusion and comes from having carefully evaluated facts before arriving at a decision.

           Now a person can be inconsistently consistent or regularly irregular which obviously is not helpful at all and that is something none of us in our right state of mind would ever want to be. The point is that our characters are formed and solidified every day of our lives by the choices we make. This is true whether we are proactive with our lives in the choices we make or if we sit back and let things happen. Either ways, our characters is being formed, one way or another, directly or indirectly. It’s what I call, “Catching the bull by the horns”, just as the bullfighter knows how to deal with a raging bull, so do we seize or even create the opportunity rather than waiting for it to happen as there’s a quote that puts it vividly, “Some people make things happen while others watch things happen and some wonder what happened?” Everyday different kinds of external character – building influences are shaping us. The question is whose hands (or what things) are forming our hearts and minds? As the poet Robert Lax once said, “The task in life is not so much about finding a path in the woods as of finding a rhythm to walk in”, I feel that both are important as depending on the path one chooses and the level of consistency one maintains, that would be the determining factor to one’s success or downfall.

            Just as we had seen earlier that saying ‘yes’ to one thing is in essence saying ‘no’ to something else, when you choose something or make a choice, you would have to give up something else. It’s called a ‘trade – off’. It’s impossible to have everything at the same time. Many pitchers can throw a baseball more than 90 mph but can’t get the ball over the plate. They have to take a little of their speed to get better control. In other words, they are trading speed for accuracy, a necessary trade – off if they want to succeed. In hockey, a team that’s losing will sacrifice some defense to increase their scoring potential. Hockey or football (soccer) goalies are often pulled in the final minute in favour of an extra attacker. This is an example of trading defense for offence. Trade – offs are an accepted part in most sports.

            Likewise in life, even the most common transactions involve choices and trade – offs. Benefits are weighed against costs. That’s how you know if something is a good deal or not. When you buy a coat, you look at the garment and decide if it’s good value for the price. If you think it’s worth it, you buy it, if not you don’t.

            When contemplating change, recognize trade – offs are inevitable. If you decide to get more sleep, you’ll have to forego some of your other pleasures whether it’s watching a late night movie, hanging out with friends and so on. Every decision, every choice has a consequence. Even not to choose is a decision ‘not to choose’. So when it comes to making a decision, weigh the pros and cons before going ahead.

            One question that we could raise when it comes to decision – making is ‘When do we listen to our head and when do we heed our gut?’ since in as much as emotions form in the brain just as clear – crystal relational thoughts do, they are a different form of information processing – more primordial but not necessarily an inferior variant. In fact, sometimes they provide the wiser counsel. Perhaps a rule of thumb would be is that if it is something to do with practiced activities, such as motor skills or questions you’ve answered a thousand times, it’s better not to reflect to the last detail. It undermines your intuitive ability to solve problems. On other hand, with complex matters though, such as investment decisions or some other activity of a similar nature, sober reflection is indispensable. In such cases, logic trumps intuition. The only thing we ought to be careful is that we do not get trapped into trying to scrutinize everything to the last details that we fail to act. Balance is key!

            To add to this, sleep and finding a hobby or something that you like doing is equally beneficial. The philosopher and writer Arthur Schopenhauer would say that sleep is the source of all health and energy. He said it better still on another occasion, “Sleep is the interest we have to pay or the capital which is called in at death. The higher the interest rate and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.”

            Sleep is the recharging of our internal batteries whose every stress we recruit in order to do our work. It’s built into our biology for a reason as Allan Rechtschaffen once said, “If sleep doesn’t serve some vital function, it is the biggest mistake evolution ever made.” In fact, it has been observed that a person can die sooner from a lack of sleep then from a lack of food. There is no merit or glamour in working one’s self to the bone, trading sleep for an extra conference call or a few minutes on television or a meeting with an important person. That’s not success! That’s torture! Besides, as they say, ‘sleep over it …’ when faced with adversity, sometimes sleeping over it can actually quite literally help bring about new insights on how to face our problems which brings me to the point about having a hobby.

            The point about having a hobby is not just simply to fill the hours to distract the mind. Rather it’s to engage a pursuit that simultaneously challenges and relaxes us. Life is about balance, not swinging from one pole to another. Too many people alternate between working and lingering on television, food, video games or lying around wondering why they are bored. Perhaps the best way to understand what a hobby is through what is called ‘deep play’.

The term ‘deep play’ was popularized by the anthropologist Clifford Gertz. Video games or games such as ludo do not qualify as ‘deep play’. ‘Deep play’ is much more than a game. In creative lives, activities become ‘deep play’ when they have at least one of the four factors (or even all four if possible),

(I)                First, deep play is mentally absorbing. It offers the player challenges to face and problems to solve. Like all recovery experiences which doesn’t require effort, the player falls into the game easily. It may give the player the chance to learn new things or discover things about himself/herself that they would not in their work.

(II)              Second, deep play offers a new context in which to use some of the same skills that they use in their work

(III)           Third, deep play offers some of the same satisfactions as work but it can also offer different kinds of rewards something that would be fulfilling at a personal level

(IV)          Finally, deep play provides a living connection to the player’s past. It may build on things the player did with his or her parents, have features that remind the player of a childhood home or activities from the player’s youth or in other ways, it could serve as a way of keeping links with the past alive.

            The combination of absorption, use of skills in new contexts, similar satisfaction through different means and personal connections make deep play a powerful break from work, a respite from professional frustration and a source of recovery. Deep play becomes worthwhile because its rewards are substantial and it can acquire momentum, pulling its players in directions they never expected to go.

            Creative people don’t engage in deep play despite their high levels of activity and productivity; they are active and productive because of deep play or for that matter, we shouldn’t be surprised that people manage to be physically active and do world – class work rather we should recognize that they do world – class because they are physically active.

            It is therefore important to take care of ourselves physically when going through adversity. As tough as this may sound, it is crucial and the reason is that if we don’t take care of ourselves physically, if we don’t align ourselves properly, it doesn’t matter how strong you are mentally or spiritually and while no doubt there can be exceptions to this, you would be in a better position to face and deal with adversity when you have taken care of yourself physically through proper rest, exercise and diet (on a side note, I do plan to write a post/reflection on the value of fitness and how that helps in habit formation including the spiritual life).

            So as Henry David Thoreau once said, “We are all sculptors and painters and our material is our flesh, blood and bones”, we can’t pray our soul into better conditions. We have got to move and live our way. It will take our bodies, our habits, our actions, our self – care to get our minds and our spirit in the right place just as it takes our minds and spirit to get our bodies to the right place. All three go hand in hand and yet all this cannot be possible without discipline. As cliché this may sound, nothing can be further from the truth, for as Abraham Lincoln once said, “The river always follows the line of least resistance and that is why it is crooked,” it seems as though that it is the law of nature that when things are left to themselves, they deteriorate rather than improve. There are numerous examples that can be given in this regard: if a person does not exercise, then his body will become all flab or if  person does not use his or her musical or artistic talent then that talent would slowly disappear or if an iron bar is left out on its own, it will begin to rust or if a garden is left to itself and is not pruned from time to time, the weeds grow along with the other plants that are there in the garden and the garden eventually becomes a small jungle and so on. It is for this reason that no character ever develops without a certain amount of resistance and mortification. By this what I mean is a resistance to something that may apparently seem good but does more harm in the long run like junk or fast food may seem tasty but if it is habitual, it could adversely affect one’s health or leading a sedentary lifestyle over a period of time can also have great adverse effects on one’s health or not being careful about one’s finances could cause one to go bankrupt and so on. It will hurt a bit as the violin, if it were a conscious being would scream with pain when the violinist tightens the strings. But the violinist would say, ‘My dear string, this is to give you a better tone’. If a block of marble were conscious, it would protest when the chisel strikes, but the sculptor would say, ‘There is a beautiful form inside of you and all you have to do is cut away that which is gross and the inner beauty will be revealed’ which in essence, is actually so true – an effective way to bring about change is to eliminate the thing you don’t want. For instance, how do you carve out an elephant out of a marble? You take a big slab of marble, get a hammer and a chisel and start chipping away everything that does not contribute to the shape of an elephant. It’s the same with life.

            There is a world of difference between willing and wanting. Most people want to be good but they do not will to be good. Character formation is the same like chiseling a block of marble to get the desired form - one has to knock off chunks of selfishness, ego, pride or whatever other vices that may be present that could be holding one back from becoming the best version of themselves. The irony is character – building or character formation or becoming the best version of ourselves is a never – ending process. If ever one were to think that he or she has reached the pinnacle of success or that he or she knows everything that there is to know, that would be the beginning of his or her downfall.

            Tied up with this is commitment. Commitment is a promise or a pledge to do something. Here the person to whom you are making the promise to is yourself and the promises you make to yourself can be the most compelling of all. Commitment is often the difference between forging on and giving up when the going gets tough. It is what provides the strength, conviction, persistence and determination to carry you over the rough spots. So many people start things – a dream project that they always wanted to do, a weight – loss plan, a basement renovation or whatever that may be, but never finish them. They don’t follow through. Commitment is the beacon that keeps you on course when change is difficult and draining. You don’t need it when things are going smoothly. It’s when you’re stuck and discouraged and want to quit that you need commitment the most.

            When you plan a change in your life that looks daunting, make yourself a sacred promise that you will finish what you set out to do. But don’t make frivolous promises or commitments that you don’t intend to keep. Such pledges, when not kept, undermine you and progress you for giving up. Make commitments with sincerity and conviction and see them through.

        A good example of this is the life of John Newton, an 18^th century slave trader who used to ship salves from Africa to America. One day, his ship was caught in a terrible storm and he feared for his life. He had never been so frightened. In his desperation, he began to pray and made a solemn promise to God that, if he was spared from the storm’s devastation, he would give up his work as a slave – trader and spend the rest of his life in the service of the Lord. No one knew about his promise but him. The storm lifted and he survived. It would have been very easy for this man to forget about his pledge or renege it. After all, no one would ever know except him. But he honoured the commitment he had made. He put his boat into port in England, got off the ship and entered the clergy. He spent the rest of his life as a minister and wrote about his transforming experience in the hymn, ‘Amazing grace’ which till today is one of the popular hymns in Christian music. When you make a promise to yourself, keep it. There is great power in commitments that are honoured this way.

 

           If you put your mind to something, you can accomplish it if you have the will and determination for where there’s a will, there’s a way. One small tip to keep your commitment is to understand how the human will works. The human will is like a battery, at least in the short term. If it is depleted, future challenges could take a hit.

 

          Psychologist Roy Baumeister demonstrated this in the following experiment. He put some students in front of an oven in which chocolate cookies were baking. Their delicious scent wafted around the room. He then placed a bowl filled with radishes by the oven and told the students that they could eat as many cookies as they wanted. Afterward, both groups had to solve a tough maths problem. The students who were forbidden to eat any cookies gave up on the maths problem twice as fast as those who were allowed to gorge freely on cookies. The period of self – control had drained their mental energy or will power which they now needed to solve the problem.

            Self – control is not available around the clock. It needs time to refuel. The good news is that to achieve it, all you need to do is to refill your blood sugar, kick back and relax and yet, although eating enough and giving yourself breaks is important, the next necessary condition is employing an array of tricks to keep you on the straight and narrow path which includes eliminating distractions which could be turning off your internet when working on something important, or setting deadlines to accomplish something or having a friend of family member who can hold you accountable for an important task.

            On further reflecting, given the fact that our will – power is like a muscle, when we give into distractions, we are not only depleting ourselves of mental strength but we are also losing out on time. It’s like the more you give time and energy to the other things that are less important, you are slowing down the speed of your train by stopping at each and every situation that comes your way, which is only going to delay your journey, causing you to take more time in reaching your destination which is the goal you want to accomplish or achieve.

            The beauty of setting the ball rolling is that when you act upon your goal and work at it consistently, we begin to experience what is known as the ‘elimination and evolution’ model of change which according to Dr. David Posen, is similar to doing a jigsaw puzzle (as seen in his book “Always change a losing game”). One of the satisfying things about jigsaw puzzles is that every time you fit a piece, two positive things happen: you see a little more of the picture falling into place and you have one piece less to sort through as you look for the other parts of the puzzle. Similarly, as you sort out your life, take control, solve problems and so on, every negative element you eliminate makes the overall picture a little cleaner and also removes a little more of the clutter – which makes the next pieces easier to see and fit into place. So,

i)                   Seek out new ideas and try new things, which is to say try new things in the expectation that some will fail

ii)                 When trying something new, do it on a scale where failure is survivable because it will be common. Making failure survivable sometimes means taking small steps, testing the waters, seeing how far you can go. Taking risks means that probabilities are known while uncertainty means the probabilities are unknown. On the basis of risk, you can decide whether or not to take a gamble. In the realm of uncertainty, it’s much harder to make decisions. The term risk and uncertainty are as frequently mixed up as cappuccino and latte macchiato (The actual cappuccino is a strong black coffee. In fact, this is what you will get if you ask for a cappuccino in Italy. If you are looking for coffee with milk, that’s when you need to ask for latte macchiato).

            You can make calculations with risks but not with uncertainty. The 300 year old science of risk is called statistics. A host of professors deal with it but not a single textbook exists on the subject of uncertainty. Because of this, we try to squeeze ambiguity into risk categories but the truth is that it does not fit. Let’s take a look at two examples,

Ø  From medicine (where it works)

Ø  From the economy (where it does not work)

            There are billions of humans on earth. Our bodies do not differ dramatically. We all reach a similar height (no one will ever be 100 feet tall) and a similar age (no one will live for 10,000 years or only for a millisecond). Most of us have two eyes, four heart valves, two hands, two feet, 32 teeth and so on. For this reason, there are many similar diseases and it makes sense to say for example, ‘There is a 30% risk you will die of cancer’ while on the other hand, if you make the following assertion, ‘There is a 30% chance that the euro will collapse in the next five years’ would be meaningless and why? Because the economy resides in the realm of uncertainty. There are not billions of comparable currencies from whose history we can derive probabilities.

            To avoid this hassle, we must learn to handle ambiguity. This is a difficult task and one that we cannot influence actively or consciously and yet often the only way through it is to learn to take it in our stride but of course, understanding the difference between risk and uncertainty is perhaps half the battle won.

iii)               Seek out feedback and learn from your mistakes as you go along. Distinguishing success from failure, oddly, can be the hardest task of all: arrogant leaders can ignore the distinction, our own denial can blur it and the sheer complexity of the world can make the distinction hard to draw even for the most objective judge which is why seeking out feedback and learning from one’s mistakes is crucial.

            Give yourself clarity, not sympathy, when adversity strikes you for where the head goes, the body follows. That’s where our intellectual maturity shows up which lies in the ability to distinguish between the essential and the accidental. It is the petty mind that gets worked up over trifles and loses sight of longer more important issues which comes about as a result form the ability to distinguish between objective truth from subjective assumption. Be careful of the ‘herd mentality’. Just because fifty million people endorse something does not necessarily imply that such a thing has to be true which can apply in our personal, professional or even in the spiritual life as Aldous Huxley once said, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored” which is why relativism can be a dangerous thing but that’s a different topic altogether [if you would like to know about the dangers of relativism, check out my other blogpost/reflection, https://insightsfromacommonman.blogspot.com/2020/03/am-i-my-brothers-keeper.html “Am I my brother’s keeper?”]

            To conclude with one final example about dealing with adversity is the life of Ulysses S. Grant, the 18^th President of the United States of America. Grant had an egotistical self – promoting father who was caught up in some scandal or another. Grant knew that wasn’t who he wanted to be. In response, he developed a cool and calm self – confidence that was much closer to his mother’s quiet but strong personality which was the source of his greatness.

            Before the Civil War, Grant experienced a chain of setbacks and financial difficulties. It came to such a point that he had to sell firewood for a living – a hard fall for a graduate of West Point. An army buddy of his one day found him selling firewood and was aghast, “Great God, Grant, what are you doing?” he asked, to which Grant replied, “I am solving the problem of poverty”.

            That’s the answer of a confident person, a person at peace in difficulty. Grant did not choose the situation but he was not going to allow it to affect him or his sense of self. Besides, he was too busy trying to fix his situation that there was no time to brood or fret. Why hate himself for working for a living? What was shameful about that? And that’s perhaps the best we can all do – to focus on what’s within our control.

            There are many things in life that are not within our control, some of which can cause great stress, anxiety, depression and other such negative emotions but what we can do to combat it is to focus on how we control our minds, the way we think, our skills, our abilities, the possibilities of finding alternative solutions to problems and so on. Yet at the same time, there may come a point when despite our best efforts, there are somethings for which nothing can be done about it. How do we deal with such things? Stay tuned for the next post/reflection to find out. Until then God love you! Stay blessed!