I've always told my kids to handle their business, and also to keep their heads. I tell them specifically to be able always to get to their inner peace. To understand that they should never let anyone or anything make them lose their inner peace.
It started when I told them why I don't curse. And I don't curse them out because there is nothing they have ever done that makes me lose my inner peace. That in fact has not ever really been the case, and maybe I overstated the tensile strength of my last nerve. But I think they appreciate it. I told them to watch their friends. When they start cursing, it's because they were losing their ability to handle their business and so they lose their inner peace. That is basic.
Famished
This is rather like how my mother said "Don't tell me you're starving. There are kids in India who are starving. You're just famished." If I said I was starving, my mother would make me eat Brussels sprouts. I hate Brussels sprouts. Starving children would beg for Brussels sprouts.
Handle Your Business
What gets more advanced is understanding how much things out there should be your business to handle. If you're ambitious, then you want to handle all kinds of business. You're even minding other people's business. But then that makes you vulnerable to all the things that can go wrong that's not under your control. If you're a busybody, then you get addicted to drama. And what do you have to offer? Your opinion? That's not handling the business. That's just giving advice. Giving advice doesn't' handle other people's business even if they heed that advice.
I think a lot of people get this twisted and it is why they are addicted to drama. It's because they don't know the difference between their business and other people's business.
I've had enough anxiety in my life to need professional help. What happened was I was worried about what my boss might say. And naturally, I said, what's the worse thing that can happen. So I found myself dreaming up a worst-case scenario, and trying to prepare for that. My counselor told me that was crazy. He said that I am only responsible for the things my boss actually tells me, not what I think he might tell me. So while I can entertain a bunch of wild and crazy scenarios, I shouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about them, because that's not my reality. It is a potential reality that i am faced with, but to be realistic, I have to actually deal with what is actual. That means I didn't even need to plan to handle it a scenario. I didn't need to plan for failure, I needed to plan to be ready to face actual news. Until such time as it's actual news I'm hearing, stop worrying.
SWOT
Interestingly enough, today we are looking at SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are within your control. Opportunities and threats reside outside of your control. So what do you do? You leverage your strengths, you work on improving your weaknesses. You prepare for opportunities and threats with the understanding that you cannot control if or when they occur. If you spend all of your time wishing for opportunities and hiding from threats, you are going to feel helpless, because they are not under your control.
In order to deal with opportunities and threats, you look at what happens to other people and you have their experiences to learn from. You need to pay attention to how frequently they are faced with such threats and opportunities. This is what I've seen that nobody does when it comes to 'being and unarmed black man', for example. Or for being a Muslim in America, or one trying to get into America. People look at worst case scenarios and take that to be the actual nature of the threat, and so they worry about that, and get into the fallacies of confirmation bias. Worst case scenario thinking can be fatalistic and fantastic. It's wishful thinking of a perverted sort, like the adolescent attraction to horror films, or middle aged man looking at revenge films like 'Taken'.
The Stoic Angle
As a Stoic, I've insulated myself from the sort of worry in a different kind of way, that's rather complicated to explain. But it consists of a couple things in terms of know what can go wrong and not being surprised by that.
Respect for History
To better understand what can happen, understand what has happened. Every time I read about Napoleon or Caesar, I recognize a bit more what I might do, or what anyone could actually get away with. It expands my imagination but not to fantastic lengths. In that way it's always better to compare yourself to Ulysses S Grant than to Superman.
Antifragility & Risk
Getting a better handle on the likelihood for opportunities and threats is a discipline you need. But your aim should be to become anti-fragile. Which means you learn from failure and you get better under adverse conditions. You know the aphorism here: what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Within limits this is true. Lifting weights above your head hurts, and it make your arms stronger over time, but too much will throw out your back.
Wishful Thinking
Humans are pattern seeking thinking machines. We are subject to all kinds of mental illusions. Pay attention to logical fallacies and work to avoid them.
Knowledge is Not Power
You've been told that knowledge is power. It is not. If you are action oriented and a goal setting person, you might disagree. But I'm trying to get you to see that being action oriented, setting goals, disciplining oneself, executing properly and evaluating results don't just happen. These are intelligent actions. Successful intelligent actions produce power. Just knowing is not enough.
So now you must pay attention to what knowledge you take on in order to leverage your strengths to produce intelligent actions. Depending on threats and opportunities that lie beyond your control, you may or not be successful in these intelligent actions. If you are handling your business, then you know what knowledge to focus on.
Conclusion
Handle your business. Understand where your ambition extends beyond your own business, and where events are beyond your control.
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