non-attachment
I’d planned to write this entry for quite some time now, but given recent events, it seems appropriate.
First, let me start with the housekeeping, but it also fits with this topic. I weighed in at 195.8 without clothes yesterday, a 2.8 lb. increase from last week. Yes, increase. I think it had something to do with the excessive amounts of pumpkin pie I ate over the weekend. I expect this week’s weight loss to be exactly that - a loss, somewhere near 5 lbs.
Regardless, I received a newsletter in the last few weeks from Robert Fritz, an author of several books about the creative process and how to better live life. what he talked about in this newsletter was the value and unecessary meanings we assign to events in our lives. He illustrated his piont by talking about a person close to him, that when something bad happened, this person began to worry and panic. When he asked why, this person responded with a list of a dozen or so things they thought needed to be done because this event happened. What he was trying to point out was this - when an event happens, it doesn’t mean other actions are going to have to be taken, it means that event happened. Everything else that follows is because of the value and judgment placed on the event.
For another case in point, my sensei is fond of telling me not to assign values to things that happen on the mat. Everyone in the school at one point or another has done this: something bad happens on the mat, a throw isn’t done quite right, a fall isn’t done quite right, an opportunity during grappling is missed, and the self-criticism starts. Suddenly everything spirals out of control for the person and it becomes a night where they feel like they can’t do anything right, and it all started because that person assigned a value to something that occurred, and that value was negative. As sensei has correctly pointed out to me before, when you don’t assign a value to something, your mind is free to move on to whatever is next without getting hung up on what just happened.
So, to apply this to a set of circumstances currently in my life, it’s no secret I don’t like working for my current manager. However, here are the facts of the situation: I work for him, currently directly report to him, I don’t agree with most of what he does or says, and while we get along, his management style and my work style just haven’t meshed well. The value I put on the situation is that it’s bad: I don’t like working for him, I don’t feel like an effective part of the team, I think several uncomplimentary things about him I won’t write since I wouldn’t say them to his face, and I’m generally unhappy with the situation. I am free to re-frame it though: I can choose to see this as an opportunity to learn to work with someone like this, learn how to manage a difficult manager, be grateful that I’m learning this lesson now rather than later.
At the end of the day, the situation is the situation, and how I act and react to it is entirely up to me. I am willing to release the thoughts and judgments that led me to think the situation is bad. Yes, I do consider it undesirable, but it is not a permanent condition. I am not stuck, I can try to move to another team, or quit and go elsewhere, or do something that would result in a change to the situation. I can change the situation just by changing my thinking about it. Or I can change it by just allowing it to be what it is and not putting any judgment on it at all, letting it pass, and moving on to what’s next.