Written 3/28/2012
You may recall a couple weeks ago that there was a guy there at work that got called into "the room" and came out with "that look" on his face: half distraught, half pissed, and have trying to look as unaffected and as stone faced as possible. So a couple days ago, I walked out of the room with "that look" on my face. I was not getting it done! (As you might have gotten from my last post!) The pressure has been put on me now and somehow, while I don't feel like I've put pressure on myself since then, my numbers are up a bit.
Pressure is an interesting thing for me these days though. My boss actually seemed quite disturbed by what he seemed to perceive as a "laissez-faire" attitude to it all. But then again, laissez-faire is a word that is as misused as much of my general philosophy of life is misunderstood in the West. If you read back into much of my writing, you'll see Daoist philosophy and thought come into play. This is why this pressure stuff is so interesting to me. How is it that pressure fits so readily into our concepts of drive and pushing for the things we want? My boss gave a related version of the old Yoda mantra: there is no try... you're just going to do it. I of course responded with a much more pensive and calculated, "well my history has shown me that the odds are against me in this kind of work, but I believe in the causes we are fighting for and am working hard, analyzing my self and working to make myself better each day and each hour. The results will be what they are and they will be, but pressure won't become me."
He seemed baffled by this. A willingness to just work as one works, do as one does, ground one's self in the heart of history and reality while simply allowing life to happen, your world to happen, things to just be. Yeah, it made no sense to him either!
It's all so funny though, I spent so much time in life embracing pressure, stepping up and thriving in it. Especially in sports, and then even in business settings. But now I take an approach very different from then, one that allows my heart and soul to feel at peace with life. I just work at things, and allow them to be.
I think some of this is why Occupy works so well with me. It's a place where things just happen, are done. People don't seem to try, they just come together, think of something to do, and it just happens collectively, communally, and organically. It is an amazing place.
You may recall a couple weeks ago that there was a guy there at work that got called into "the room" and came out with "that look" on his face: half distraught, half pissed, and have trying to look as unaffected and as stone faced as possible. So a couple days ago, I walked out of the room with "that look" on my face. I was not getting it done! (As you might have gotten from my last post!) The pressure has been put on me now and somehow, while I don't feel like I've put pressure on myself since then, my numbers are up a bit.
Pressure is an interesting thing for me these days though. My boss actually seemed quite disturbed by what he seemed to perceive as a "laissez-faire" attitude to it all. But then again, laissez-faire is a word that is as misused as much of my general philosophy of life is misunderstood in the West. If you read back into much of my writing, you'll see Daoist philosophy and thought come into play. This is why this pressure stuff is so interesting to me. How is it that pressure fits so readily into our concepts of drive and pushing for the things we want? My boss gave a related version of the old Yoda mantra: there is no try... you're just going to do it. I of course responded with a much more pensive and calculated, "well my history has shown me that the odds are against me in this kind of work, but I believe in the causes we are fighting for and am working hard, analyzing my self and working to make myself better each day and each hour. The results will be what they are and they will be, but pressure won't become me."
He seemed baffled by this. A willingness to just work as one works, do as one does, ground one's self in the heart of history and reality while simply allowing life to happen, your world to happen, things to just be. Yeah, it made no sense to him either!
It's all so funny though, I spent so much time in life embracing pressure, stepping up and thriving in it. Especially in sports, and then even in business settings. But now I take an approach very different from then, one that allows my heart and soul to feel at peace with life. I just work at things, and allow them to be.
I think some of this is why Occupy works so well with me. It's a place where things just happen, are done. People don't seem to try, they just come together, think of something to do, and it just happens collectively, communally, and organically. It is an amazing place.
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