No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected. ~ Julius Caesar
Surprising things happen in life – both pleasant surprises and unpleasant. Regardless of the quality of the surprise, every surprise is, by definition, unexpected and because it is unexpected it will have the tendency to throw me off balance. Unfortunately, many of us seem to spend much of our lives off balance without really knowing how to come back to a resourceful center point.
There is an aphorism in the martial art of Aikido
that admonishes the practitioner not to sacrifice their balance for power. When
I look at many executives today they are in a continual process of trying to
power through the surprises that they encounter on a daily basis. As a
consequence, their stress levels are through the roof, they are reactive, they
tend (more than most) to have short fuses, and, if in this state long enough
will soon run themselves and those around them into the wall of burnout.
The objective is not attempting to be continuously balanced; it’s learning to quickly return to a balanced and centered state when knocked off. This is only possible if I have an intimate familiarity with where that balanced state exists in my holistic (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) body.
There is a wonderful quote from the Irish author James Joyce that is useful to consider when assessing your ability to re-center: “Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body.”
Where do you live?