#5 Crisis / Opportunity
~ 8 minute read ~
In the traditional Chinese the above represents ‘Crisis’ according to my lazy Google search. The first character means “danger” or “precarious”. There has been a widespread misperception in the English-speaking world that the second character means “opportunity” but, according to Wikipedia, a closer translation is something more like “change point”.
So if we define a “crisis” as a “change point” - is that a good or bad thing? We often associate the word crisis as having bad connotations, and of course it can be terrible and affect many lives. The COVID-19 Crisis, The Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 causing the Credit Crunch, the Cuban Missile Crisis. People can sometimes be said to have an identity crisis, or a crisis of conscience and so on and so on.
Following the Coronavirus lockdown measures that much of the world had to adhere to this year, many people were faced with multiple crises; being furloughed (then having to find out what furlough meant), home-schooling their kids, others having to contend with working from home, many struggled with having to stay inside, families became closer, other families became sick of each other. Imagine the statistics - the lockdown divorces, the lockdown babies etc.
A lot of us really started to examine what was important to us. We turned inwards, cleared out our garages, cupboards and attics. We put boxes of things out the front of our homes “FREE - HELP YOURSELF”. Looking at all of the stuff we’d acquired and realising “why do I still own t-shirts from when I was at university?”. Maybe that’s just me?
Some of us, well me, suddenly felt an intense need to re-evaluate what was truly important to us;
My kids’ wellbeing - check.
My health/fitness- check.
My mental health - check.
My hobbies/things I enjoy/creative outlets - check.
My job - [grimace emoji]…
I SAID MY JOB…?
Tumbleweed.
I know I should be grateful, look at all the workers who have been made redundant, furloughed or forced to accept changes to contracts etc.
I know I should be grateful just still having a job, especially now as I work from home permanently so no more annoying commute but still…
I just can’t phone it in anymore. The Coronavirus Crisis has zoomed in on some really fundamental areas - the daily death tolls, the number of sick, the amazing frontline workers, the altruism, all these wonderful kindnesses people are doing for each other. A sense of community re-discovered.
Crisis, remember is defined as both dangerous but also a change point.
For me, I looked at what I do everyday and I couldn’t see any value in it. How was I positively affecting people’s lives? Other than my own. Obviously I need to provide for my family and pay the bills, but what if I could cover that for a bit? What if I’d done a basic budget based on my savings? What if I could afford to stop for a while, figure things out and try something new? Find something that truly makes my heart sing that also contributes to society in a positive way? Risky? Possibly.
What if?
What if we all looked at our work situations and re-evaluated? What if we looked at our lives through the prism of hope, creativity, abundance and happiness instead of via a jaded sense of desperation, of lack, of being stuck and depressed about it all? I know we can’t all quit our jobs, but we can effect small changes each day that soften the blow of selling our time on this planet for money.
Why wait until there’s a crisis to make the changes you’ve been wanting to make for so long? Why wait until there’s a scary diagnosis? Why wait until the kids are grown up? Why wait until the stars align? Why wait until there’s a worldwide pandemic? Why wait until, well, why wait?
Like in the scene from Fight Club where Brad Pitt’s character, Tyler Durden, holds a gun to the back of the head of a convenient store worker, Raymond, and tells him he’s going to die. He then asks him what did Raymond always want to be? Under extreme duress and fear for his life he says he wanted to be a veterinarian.
Still holding the gun Tyler Durden asks why he wasn’t a veterinarian already? Raymond says he took some classes but dropped out because it was too hard. Tyler then says would you rather die than go back to school? He tells Raymond that if he’s not on the way to becoming a veterinarian within 6 weeks he will be dead.
[Spoiler alert] turns out the gun wasn’t even loaded.
In that scene, it’s an extreme illustration of how many of us spend our lives. How we try, fail and then tell ourselves it was too hard anyway? We then “grow up” and let go of those dreams - we can’t all be astronauts anyway can we?! I suppose we’ll never know. We float along making do, then we tell ourselves we’ll save it all for the bucket list when we retire.
What if we don’t make it to retirement though? Sorry to be the party pooper, and I do believe there is some value in delayed gratification BUT not when it comes to how we live our lives. Life is uncertain, it always has been and it always will be. Life is a gift. Being born means we’ve already won the lottery, have you seen the odds of being born? How many things at various stages had to happen for you to have been born safely and healthy?
You’ve already won and you didn’t even know it? I’m not judging, I didn’t know it either. I’ve played it safe all my life, car in neutral coasting along, I did a few mildly interesting and fun things but I sold 20 years of my life for an entirely unfulfilling existence.
Then just as lockdown was easing, just as things started opening up. I had a crisis. Rock-bottom. Nowhere else to go. I was so stressed out with work I had physical pain - my body was racked with pain, stiffness and anxiety about facing another day of total dissatisfaction in my working life. I just could not do it any more.
I had held on for too long and it took a crisis for me to finally accept and surrender to what I’d been feeling for many years. Resistance is pain. It’s scary but once you accept that a change needs to be made - no matter how big or small, a kind of ease and relief washes over you.
From crisis to opportunity. I’ve been wanting to start living a life that had a sense of flow and ease to it, as opposed to resistance and dis-ease. Dis-ease if left unchecked can lead to disease.
I don’t want you to feel stuck in a rut anymore, I don’t want you to feel helpless. You have all the power, you just need to become aware of and step into it. Step into your power. Give yourself permission. I give you permission to do whatever it is that will help you out of this “stuckness”. Firstly, stop caring about what others think. Don’t give them that power over you.
I’m a big believer in exercise and movement. I spent a longtime thinking I was too tired to do anything after work because it drained me of all my energy.
Give yourself permission to reacquaint yourself with your body. Do something that allows you to feel present in your body again - a walk, yoga, stretching, bodyweight exercises, paddling in water - anything. Even at your desk you can do some deep breathing - try 6 really deep breaths - I mean properly deep, push your belly out as you breathe in, hold then breathe out. After 6 breaths, you’ll feel better.
I guess I should try and make a point and wrap this up.
So crisis - yeah that was it, I’m back in the room. Crisis - it’s an ending, a time when a difficult decision must be made. It’s the start of something new, a change point. An opportunity. Doesn’t sound too bad when you put it like that right?
You’ve been made redundant and OMFG the country is now in recession WTF AM I GOING TO DO? Crisis or opportunity? You can choose to stay in the OMFG state or you can start working things out.
Our minds play tricks on us, we create fear which is worse than the actual thing that we fear. Like Franklin D. Roosevelt said at his First Inauguration as President of the U.S.A.:
“…the only thing we have to fear is… fear itself”
I’m taking this opportunity to try something new, to strike out and step into the unknown. I’m leaving a fairly safe job that pays a regular salary to try some things I’m not even sure of at this moment but I’ve got to try. And I’m doing it as the News tells us that the U.K. has entered its worst recession for 11 years - YAY. There’s never a good time to do anything is there.
A bad day doing something you love will always be better than a great day doing something you tolerate for money (yes I’ve seen something like this on a t-shirt).
If not now then when? When I’m kneeling in a car park behind a convenience store with a gun to the back of my head?
Oh I’ve finally found that point I was trying to make…
Don’t wait for a crisis to explore the opportunities you’ve always wanted.
Love
LP x
