Three Practices For Tranquility

Recently, I’ve got an email with this short message:

You never look the least bit tired or stressed....please send me the recipe.

My first reaction was “Wow, if he only knew” and I responded with “not all that glitters is gold” LOL... This came from someone that knows me fairly well so I reflected a little bit more on it. To be clear, like everyone else I am stressed and anxious sometimes, and I feel tired too.

I also have cultivated practices that have helped me deal with things that life throws at me. Sometimes life throws quite a bit at you. And because these perspectives have helped me, they may help you too, especially in times of change and uncertainty.

The usual disclaimer: each one is different so feel free to skip the whole thing. 

The first practice is perception. Essentially, this is about stripping events of all premature (and subjective) judgments and assumptions. Putting first impressions on hold until we get a chance to get a better understanding of these events. Oftentimes, things are not as bad as they seem! And when/if they are truly bad, you have more information to deal with them more effectively. It is NOT about being an emotionless machine. Suppressing what we feel is not generally healthy.

A good mental trick is to imagine whatever is happening as if it happened to someone else. Like a movie. The goal here is to be objective. To see things for what they truly are, not as they appear to be. (Have you ever written an angry email, only to regret sending it later on?)

The second is the practice of will. This has mostly to do with the things we do not control (quite a bit as it turns out). This is where you persevere and focus; where you practice your grit. It is the belief that whatever happens, you can endure; and that you will prevail in the end. That you can turn any obstacle to work for you, and that there’s an opportunity wrapped in any mistake/error/bad experience. Over time, you will welcome anything that happens to you; because you can’t really do anything to avoid external things; and you can learn how to use them in your favor.

The last one is the practice of action. And this is the realm of the things we do control. Once things happen to us, and once we have looked objectively at a situation (through perception): what do we do? What can we do? What options do we have? Do we sit down and lament our bad luck, being passive victims? Or do we move forward? Speak up. Try something. Learn. Are we part of the change we want to see? What we do, speaks much more loudly than what we say.

I didn't invent any of these of course. They are quite old practices that have sustained the test of time. They are “Lindy”, as Nassim Taleb would say.

Here’s a 2000 years old journal entry written by an all-powerful, wise ruler. Can you spot Perception/Will and Action?

Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option to:

1) accept this event with humility

2) treat a person as they should be treated

3) approach this thought with care, so that nothing irrational creeps in