Confinement: time out or playing time?

When Nelson Mandela finally left prison after spending 27 years of his life there, a journalist asked how he how had been able to survive so long. His answer was stunning: “I didn’t survive, I prepared myself.” Mandela took advantage of every minute to educate himself and study, to stay in good physical condition, to develop his thinking… In essence, he invested his time in preparing himself for what would come afterward, understanding that if he maintained his determination, everything would pass and that a promising future awaited him beyond those four walls.

A famous phrase from Stoic philosophy has it that “We cannot control the world around us, only how we respond to it.” Mandela’s example, like many others, demonstrates that although we can’t control many of the circumstances to which we are exposed, our way of responding to them will to a large degree determine the outcome. If Mandela had chosen to give up and let himself go, or reacted to his imprisonment with anger and hate, he would never have become the leader who united a country, one who understood sport and used it as something to bring people together. In much the same way, if Malcolm X had not decided to transform his life in prison through books and to leave behind the world of crime, he would have never become a key figure in African-American civil rights. Malcolm said it himself: “When we change our philosophy, we change our attitude, and when we change our attitude, we change our actions.”

Passive versus proactive

Not long ago, on one of my conversations with professionals from different fields, which I then share on Instagram, I had the chance to discuss this subject further with Ryan Holiday, one of the most prolific and successful writers of recent years, whose books have sold more

than 2 million copies and been translated into 30 languages. To a large extent, Holiday’s books explore the ideas of Stoic philosophy and explain to us show we can apply them in our daily life. When we think of philosophy, we sometimes imagine something too theoretical and distant, but it’s surprising to see how ideas from past centuries apply to the current context. Here are some of the concepts we explored in our conversation and how they are especially meaningful today.

In basketball, time out is a break in play requested by the coach of one team or the other. It’s a moment when play is stopped so as to listen to the instructions of the coaches, to break the rhythm of the opposing team, and/or so that the players can catch their breath.  Playing time, on the other hand, are those productive seconds or minutes on the court when the team has the chance to create opportunities, score, and achieve a favorable outcome. As a basketball player, my job is to use that playing time to the best possible advantage so the scoreboard will be as favorable as possible, and thus give us the best chance of winning the game.

Likewise in life, Ryan differentiates between two kinds of time: dead time and alive time. The first comes about when we are only reactive and passive when faced with a situation. When we sit down and let things happen, without doing anything about it. While, as I explained, time out in basketball has a definite and important use, the dead time Ryan refers to is what we might consider as lost or wasted time. But the second concept, alive time, refers to being proactive and focused on everything we could do in the moment –for example learning, improving and growing.

In situations like the present one, this distinction is especially important so as to take the best possible advantage of the confinement period. “Isolation Can Be Creative” is the title the philosopher Dr. Joke J. Hermesen has given to one of her most recent articles.

Nobody doubts that this situation will eventually end and that, while reality will never be what it was, we will establish a ‘new reality’ that we will all have to adapt to. What we should ask ourselves is this: when we look back, how will we remember this current period? Will we want to see it as a dark time that frustrated our dreams? Or do we prefer to remember it as a period that stimulated our creative capacity and pushed us to change?

Personally, I prefer to see this period as an opportunity. As many of you know, my plans at the beginning of March were to recover from my injury and try to take part in my fifth Olympic Games. All my efforts and energies were directed toward a goal that seemed so clear. But suddenly the world stopped because of a pandemic that is punishing every country to one degree or another. This health emergency became a global priority, and the wishes and aims of individuals took a back seat to the common good.

Like everyone, I had to get used to the idea that my plans had to change –and that the Olympics would have to wait. This gave me more time to recover, obviously, though it also added a year to my already long sporting career. But in any case, I decided to meet it with a positive attitude, not only from the point of view of preparing and recuperating, but also because it was a chance to explore new facets of myself.

Reevaluating our possibilities

Just as has happened to many great people through history, periods of reclusion or confinement can become moments for preparation. We just have to sit down and reevaluate our possibilities and figure out how we can make that time as productive as possible. This idea is very similar to the mind set preached by my great friend Kobe Bryant: his “mamba mentality.” He transformed any circumstance, no matter how adverse, into motivation that would propel him toward a new challenge to overcome. A defeat was a warning about the need to be better the following day; an injury was an obstacle for improving physically and being stronger; a change on the team meant coming up with a new strategy to make the new players adapt as quickly as possible to the group... For Kobe, a situation that might break the spirit of many people was a new challenge that stimulated even more his desire for excellence.

In the same way, staying at home can become a private fortress from which to learn beneficial habits that we’ll have for the rest of our life. For example, it can be a good time to work on healthy behavior that will improve our health. Engaging in an hour of physical activity each day, eating the right food, getting enough sleep, and meeting our emotional needs are some of the things that help me day-to-day. We can also discover things about ourselves that until now we had neglected. For example, based on my experience, I’m using the time to create content that can be useful for other people.

 In the end, let’s turn our dead time into play time so as to be prepared for the new reality. And may it be a reality that we create, in our home as well as in our workplace and in our country.

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This article was originally published in Spanish in Expansión.