Whatever you do, do
it with total awareness. When you are aware, when you are mindful of what’s
going on, you live more intelligently – and peacefully!
I read a Zen story that the Vietnamese Buddhist
monk Thich Naht Hahn (a.k.a Thay) shares in a discourse. A man is riding a
horse that is galloping very quickly. Another man, his friend, standing by the
roadside, yells at him: “Hey you, where are you going in such a hurry?” The man
shouts in reply, without looking back, “I don’t know. Ask the horse.” Thay says
this is the situation most of us are in – especially those who are running
crazy, from one meeting to another, chasing their tails and deadlines, in today’s
rushed world. Some of us are even riding more than one horse at the same time.
Our lives have become so busy, we don’t know where the horses we ride are
going. Worse, we don’t even have time to think, to understand, why we are on
those horses or where we may end up going.
I can relate to Thay’s metaphor of the horse
and rushing away not knowing where it is taking you. There was a time, when I
ran a reasonably spread out organization. We had operations in six cities in
India. And I had 40 people reporting to me. We had institutionalized, what we
believed was a best practice, a process of my direct reports writing to me each
weekend sharing their experiences, learnings and concerns from the past week. I
spent Sundays poring over these reports at length. Even when my children, who
were at that time young and needed my time the most, asked for me to take them
out to a restaurant or to the beach, I carried these CEO reports with me. Some
of these reports had bad news in them – a client was unhappy or a team member
accused another of politicking or someone wanted to put in her papers. I was
always a man in a hurry. So, when I finished reading these reports, I would be
impatient for the weekend to get over. Come Monday and I was keen to address
and resolve each of those issues that were escalated to me over the weekend. I
don’t think having team members share with you weekly is a bad idea. But the
way I followed that process was naïve. I ruined each of my weekends –
resultantly, I was always on the edge, irritable and unhappy with things in my
Firm and my Life! I simply did not have any time for the family – I don’t
remember any meals I had with them or goofing off with my kids. I made no
effort myself and whatever time I spent with them was only when my wife
insisted or pleaded with me. So, for almost a decade of my Life, the only
memory I have of weekends is of dealing with those CEO reports and fighting
crisis after crisis during the week. I was just on this horse called work and I
did not even know where it was taking me then.
My wake-up call came when my son, then 18, took
off to study at the University of Chicago in Fall 2008. When we saw him off at
the Chennai airport at midnight, I remember coming home and being unable to
catch sleep. My wife and daughter were exhausted but I decided to wait for a
text message from my son confirming that he had boarded. I fixed myself a drink
and was walking aimlessly around the house. I stopped by a picture of his on
one of the shelves and broke into tears. I recall asking his picture: “When did
you grow up son? And so fast? I wish I had spent more time with you!”
Thay says each day, each moment gives us the
opportunity to live intelligently. That opportunity can be seized only by being
totally aware of what we are doing. If we look at our lives, a lot of it, our
lifestyles, our way of consuming things, everything is steeped in mindlessness.
We are just being driven crazy by the horses we have chosen to ride.
Only with total awareness can you understand
the consequences of each of your choices and actions! Monday is
a good day, as any, to take a deep breath and, even if you can’t get off a
horse immediately, at least know where it’s taking you – and, if required and
if you can, rein it in!
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