Harry Potter's Dirty Little Secret

"It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
- Dumbledore in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets

While in the midst of my quarter-life crisis, I turned to the internet for wisdom. I went to http://www.google.com/, and typed into the search engine, "What is the meaning of life?" Surprisingly enough, I got a ton of garbage. One article came up about a coffee shop owner who sold everything, then got on a Greyhound bus with no destination. After a bunch of hours of searching I did find one article that gave me something meaningful. I'l spare you the detail of the article and the source, the bottom line is this: "Ultimately, a person become what they focus on."

So, this is what I would call the Big Secret. You become what you focus on. It's really that simple.

Facing Tigers

"Even left alone in a faraway hotel rom, the human animal will choose the noisemakers over silence: immediately turn on the TV, check email, study the room service menu, go to the minibar, make some phone calls, thumb a magazine, suit up for a workout in the hotel gym, which itself is equipped with more TVs and distractions. On a walk, the human animal will listen to the human animal's iPod or increasingly found speaking on the human animal's mobile, even on mountain peaks, standing before mystical vistas, talking, talking, talking....

"An alien lit down here on interplanetary vacation might be left with one question: What are they all so afraid of?"
- taken from How to Disappear by Stefan Ruiz; GQ: July 2006

In my quest to make my mind a soften, gentler place to spend time, I have been listening to lectures from Zencast--which is available on iTunes free of cost. In one of the lectures entitled "Fear," Buddhist minister and scholar Gil Fronsdahl talks about how Thai monks would go deep into the forests in order to master their fear. A few generations ago the forests of Thailand were full of wild tigers. So the monks would sit out in the open with the impending threat of death possible at all time, and remain there until they had overcome their fear.

At the end of the lecture, Fronsdahl commented, "It isn't necessary for people in Western world to go to a place like Yosemite, and meditate with wild bears running around. People in the West have so much anxiety, that their fears will come to them when they sit down and meditate."

I personally know that I harbor a lot of anxiety, and see this in many people that I associate with. So what's up with this?

I really don't have an answer to this, but ultimately this is what I have been wrestling with the past few months: the fear(s) that something might happen and it could be horrible. I've figured out a few ways to mitigate the effects and work through the anxiety, but haven't been able to figure out where this come from. Maybe I never will.

Maybe what is more important that figuring this out, is the recognition that everyone in the world has a "tiger"--a mental phantom that have a hold over a person. Some people will wrestle with the tiger while others will just sit and meditate until they mentally overcome the beast. Point being, unless you face the tiger you will never reach your full potential.

The Ultimate Skill

"The privelege of a lifetime is being who you are."
- Joseph Campbell, as seen on the back of the T-shirt worn by a fellow yoga practitioner

Today I returned to the yoga studio today, to practice under the same instructor that I spoke of in the last blog. For those who are new to the blog community, she is the one who encouraged the class to being willing to fall down while practicing inversions. I had overcome my fear of falling last class and wanted to revisit inversions while my yogic fires were still stoked. So the class gets going, we go through the same sequence as last class, eventually progressing to inversions.

I am ready to for this moment. The space in front of me is wide open. I am ready to fall on my ass in the name of progress. So, I position myself, push off, get some hang time, and produce such a fall that half the class is waiting to see if I will get up. If this had happened last class I would have rolled up my mat and left the class. This time--for whatever reason--I laughed and smiled. Next time up, I nail the inversion I hold the pose for 10 breaths. HUGE! This is the first time I have ever held an inversion.

After the class I was thinking about what I had accomplished. What is the point of being able to hold an inversion for 5 or 10 breaths? What good does it do if someone can hold parivrtta trikonasana with perfect alignment? Sadly, the answer is nothing. Yoga is a metaphor for life. The lessons one learns on the mat have very little to do with being able to turn your body in a pretzel. In the words of Rabbi Max Cohen, "I will have failed as a human being if my tombstone reads, 'Max Cohen was very flexible.' " The purpose of yoga as I understand it is this: To learn how to address and work through challenges.

Yoga is so challenging that nobody in the world will ever be able to master it. That is why it is referred to as a practice. The same is true of life. There will always be challenges in life. Nothing will ever be perfect, you will never know everything. But that's okay. There would be no great achievements in life if there weren't great challenges. If I didn't struggle with inversion, I would never have that great thrill once I was able to hold an inversion. These are the things that I will focus on this week.

Seek Progress, Not Perfection

"I still bother with runners I call hamburgers. They're never going to run any record times. But they can fulfill their own potential."
- Bill Bowerman, University of Oregon Track Coach and Co-Founder of Nike

For whatever reason, I think that the rules that govern the Universe don't apply to me. This seems to manifest itself most of all in the work place. In my mind I believe that I should be able to go about my job and deal with each and every challenge effortlessly. I continually expect perfection from myself and when I don't get this, I become upset. Upset is not the word. I become physically pained from errors that I make.

Last night, for example, I found out that I may have made an error at work right before I left the office. It almost ruined my evening. I was able to get a long, painful swim in and break up all the negativity rolling around in my head. After the workout ended, I was the last person in the locker room. For whatever reason, I said out loud, "You are never going to be perfect. Life is not about perfect. This is about progress."

This is big lesson for me. Three years ago I was the last person to walk out of the locker room at swim practice and said, "If I could just get cancer, then I could quit work and nobody would think the less of me for quitting." Make your own judgements, but I call this progress.

Anyway, I wanted to put some stuff down on the blog that I have learned over the past year, which help to mitigate the effects of the "over achiever" syndrome that plagues me.

Set Reasonable Goals

Ultimately, goals should be something that force one to grow, but also create solid skill sets. As the adage goes, "Rome wasn't built in a day." The funny thing about this quote is that the Romans didn't try to build their great city in one day. Roman architects and engineers worked slowly, and methodically. They didn't build cities in days, but rather would build part of a wall or 1/10th of a mile of a road a day.

With this in mind, try to find ways to work on pieces of long-term goals each day. One of my goals is to be a corporate controller at my current place of employement. In order to get to that position, I will need to have mastery over fixed asset accounting--my current position within the company. In one day I can learn a new piece of fixed asset accounting--like how to set up a capital lease and draft the corresponding memo. This is realistic. Expecting to understand how ALL of fixed assets works in one day is a fantastic way to make myself crazy.

To make my job sustainable and enjoyable, I have to find realize that this is the nature of the beast. The flip side of the equation is pretty nasty. For example, my first swim coach once told me, "In the past the goals I set for myself were often time so unrealistic that I could rarely achieve them." It was because of his unreasonable goals for himself that he took a ten year hiatus from competitive swimming. A devastating personal event forced him to confront his unrealistic goals, the emotional damage that was caused by this habit, and return to the world of competitive swimming. Currently he is competing at the FINA World Championships as I am writing this.

Find Ways to Feel Good

Each night after work, I make a list of what I want to achieve the next day. Some times I will be able to finish that list, and will start another list--one which is usually more auspicious than the first. At the end of the day, I'll look at the second list and go, "Gosh, I didn't get anything done," and go home feeling a little bit upset.

The aforementioned behavior is a bad habit. The only way to have long-term, sustained success is to feel good about what you are doing each day. After completing my first list, I should have gotten a cup of coffee with a friend, enjoyed a few minutes outside, and then made an additional list called "Gravy," or "Superstar." If I consistently acknowledge and let myself feel the good work that is being produced, I will be more likely to produce more good work.

Embrace Falling Down

I have always struggled with inversions, or hand stands, in yoga. It's not the balance or the strength that I lack, but the willingness to fall down and potentially crash into the person practicing next to me. After a two month hiatus, I was able to get to a yoga class today. During inversion time the instructor said, "There is nothing wrong with falling down when you work on inversions. Falling down is part of the process." No truer words have ever been spoken.

In any field of study, the people who go on to do truly great things are the ones who are not afraid to "fall down." When they fall down, they pick themselves up and go, "Oh, I'll do it a little bit differently next time." Having that willingness to fall down in front of others and embarass yourself from time to time will ultimately lead to mastery of an area as well as the respect and trust of colleagues. Nobody likes going to a boss who is a "know-it-all" with questions or issues. Most people I know do really enjoy talking to colleagues who are willing to put together the pieces as a team member.