The opportunity/problem of plenty?

"While watching it, I found myself drawn into the mystery of this man. Are there any unrealized wishes in his life? Secret diversions? Regrets? If you find an occupation you love and spend your entire life working at it, is that enough? Standing behind his counter, Jiro notices things. Some customers are left-handed, some right-handed. That helps determine where they are seated at his counter. As he serves a perfect piece of sushi, he observes it being eaten. He knows the history of that piece of seafood. He knows his staff has recently started massaging an octopus for 45 minutes and not half an hour, for example. Does he search a customer's eyes for a signal that this change has been an improvement? Half an hour of massage was good enough to win three Michelin stars. You realize the tragedy of Jiro Ono's life is that there are not, and will never be, four stars." Jiro is an 85 year old sushi master who runs a sushi-only restaurant in Japan and has just one aim in life – perfect the art of sushi. Michelin stars is a well renowned rating system by a French company (read something like a Zomato rating and 3 stars means 5.0 Zomato rating). The quote is by the director who shot the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. This documentary triggered a fundamental question – Do we have a problem of plenty in life?

I think our phones are the best example. Have you kind of lost track of the number of applications? Imagine the number of push notifications, reminders and fancy news articles being showered upon you. I didn’t have to explore so much; opened my news app, one news led to another – politics, sports, and religion and so on. 60 credits were what I earned out of an MBA, ranging from topics in organizational behavior to game theory. Many of the subjects were covered very peripherally, resulting in a ‘one mile wide – one foot deep’ phenomenon. One question led to another. Are we spreading ourselves too thin?

The way we are wired might be one of the reasons; I started connecting some dots here and remembered a chapter on a behavioral economics book Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. “In 210 BC, a Chinese commander named Xiang Yu led his troops across the Yangtze River to attack the army of the Qin (Ch'in) dynasty. Pausing on the banks of the river for the night, his troops awakened in the morning to find, to their horror, that their ships were burning. They hurried to their feet to fight off their attackers, but soon discovered that it was Xiang Yu himself who had set their ships on fire, and that he had also ordered all the cooking pots crushed. Xiang Yu explained to his troops that without the pots and the ships, they had no other choice but to fight their way to victory or perish. That did not earn Xiang Yu a place on the Chinese army's list of favorite commanders, but it did have a tremendous focusing effect on his troops: grabbing their lances and bows, they charged ferociously against the enemy and won nine consecutive battles, completely obliterating the main-force units of the Qin dynasty. Xiang Yu's story is remarkable because it is completely antithetical to normal human behavior. Normally, we cannot stand the idea of closing the doors on our alternatives. Had most of us been in Xiang Yu's armor, in other words, we would have sent out part of our army to tend to the ships, just in case we needed them for retreat; and we would have asked others to cook meals, just in case the army needed to stay put for a few weeks. Still others would have been instructed to pound rice out into paper scrolls, just in case we needed parchment on which to sign the terms of the surrender of the mighty Qin (which was highly unlikely in the first place).”

Today, we are faced by myriad opportunities knocking on our doors and popular opinion vouches for “keeping doors open”. Some of them appear gleaming enough, like an attractive job or a chance at a better relation. It is easy to try out various options till the end of our lives and reach/do not reach a conclusion. This comes at a price of the consequences of delaying decision making, costs of trying out various things and emotional wear & tear. Sometimes, the lucky ones are able to blend multiple passions in their daily life. But, is Xiang Yu’s approach the best way to live life? True focus on a single thing to see the ups and downs in that, be a part of it, make it your identity and like people say, make your own destiny?

These questions seemed a little rhetorical to me as well. I wish the answers could be laid down on a platter. Interestingly, I glanced upon a book called Miracle of Mindfulness by a Vietnamese monk. The objective of that book is to fundamentally help you breathe properly (read meditation). It is an interesting revelation to understand that your entire life is a meditative (breathing) journey and that meditation is not just a special time you reserve for sitting in a position and concentrating on your thoughts. I can say that, it has put me on a path of self-discovery, made me slow down (quite the opposite you hear nowadays), think, move ahead and concentrate only on a few doors which I want to be open. Now, meditation can be one way, pumping up iron in the gym the other way, and maybe a nice trek along the mountain ranges another way. But the key here is to find your space and way to understand your true self.

Okay, before I border towards preaching like a motivational coach, let me give 2 closing examples. “Rhett Butler leaving Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, in the scene when Scarlett clings to him and begs him, "Where shall I go? What shall I do?" Rhett, after enduring too much from Scarlett, and finally having his fill of it, says, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." It's not by chance that this line has been voted the most memorable in cinematographic history. It's the emphatic closing of a door that gives it widespread appeal. And it should be a reminder to all of us that we have doors—little and big ones—which we ought to shut.”

“A hungry donkey approaches a barn one day looking for hay and discovers two haystacks of identical size at the two opposite sides of the barn. The donkey stands in the middle of the barn between the two haystacks, not knowing which to select. Hours go by, but he still can't make up his mind. Unable to decide, the donkey eventually dies of starvation”. So, please make sure you don’t be like the donkey that faced the consequences of not taking decisions.

Good luck and let’s all bring out the Jiro, Xiang Yu and Rhett in us. I would love to hear the opposite view as well.