Mișcarea ca lege fundamentală a ființei umane
„πάντα ρεί” (gr. „Panta Rhei”, rom. „Totul curge”) ne-a lăsat scris Heraclit din Ephes acum aproximativ 2500 de ani. Atunci când ne naștem venim într-o lume care are anumite legi de funcționalitate. Sunt legi fizice precum legea gravitației sau legi fiziologice precum legea îmbătrânirii. În fapt, ne naștem și ne trăim viața în continuă mișcare, sau așa cum este mai cunoscută azi sintagma lui Heraclit „singura constantă din Univers este schimbarea”.
Care îți sunt primele gânduri atunci când auzi cuvântul Crăciun?… Poate cadouri sau chiar cursa după cadouri, poate aspecte legate de tradițiile spirituale ale perioadei, poate Moș Crăciun, poate perioada de vacanță, poate raportarea pentru închiderea de an, poate solstițiu, poate… etc. Oare te-ai gândit la mișcare și la modul în care gestionezi mișcarea în viața ta și implicit impactul tău în viețile semenilor tăi, de la familie la colegi, de la vecini la… oameni?
În corelație cu gândurile de mai sus, oare care sunt modalitățile prin care gestionezi Crăciunul?… Plecând de la această întrebare și de la răspunsul pe care poate deja ți l-ai oferit, îți propun o abordare a gestionării acestei perioade de Crăciun în acest an aparte, și prin amplificare o metodă de integrare a mișcării vieții per ansamblu.
Uitându-ne din poziția de observator a propriilor noastre vieți, vedem mișcare în viața de familie, în căsătorie, în creșterea copiilor, în ocupația noastră (ca antreprenori, ca angajați, ca liber-profesioniști, etc.), în lucrurile bune făcute unii altora. Toate evenimentele, gândurile, acțiunile și trăirile noastre descriu această linie a mișcării și sunt orientate spre un obiectiv generic, acela ca în timp și prin circumstanțele vieții să ne fie cât mai mult „bine” posibil și cât mai puțin „rău” posibil. Sui-generis, deși toată viața este mișcare, nu toată mișcarea este utilă. Unele mișcări ne pot distrage din calea atingerii obiectivelor care merită sau chiar ne pot îndrepta către obiective care nu merită.
Echilibrul „viață-muncă” vizavi de sarcinile vieții
For quite a few years now, in the business world we've been talking about work-life balance. I work with this concept in stress management and burnout trainings, or in resilience development. I also use this concept in consulting work, but especially in coaching. In the business world, at first, the concept itself was received rather with a dose of reluctance and sarcasm, and perhaps less with the hope and curiosity to discover its pragmatism in everyday life. The simple question "why this reaction?" helped me realize, at some point, that in this concept of "work-life" balance there is an unnatural dualistic split between "work" and "life". As if work were separate from life and not part of the whole called life. We tend, when we want to draw attention to an imbalance, to emphasize and explore the extremes, and probably from this point the creators and sponsors of this concept in the business world wanted to draw attention to the excess of "work" at the expense of "life" and that "something" needs to be done (the concept of work-life balance as such emerged in the 1980s in Great Britain as a foundation of the Women's Liberation Movement, which aimed at flexible schedules and receiving maternity leave – aspects that today increasingly belong to a behavioral and legislative norm)
As such, rather than focusing on work vs. life, I chose to work with clients and participants in trainings and coaching through the lens of balancing life tasks, work being just one of them. A. Adler and R. Dreikurs defined several life tasks, as part of our presence in this world:
The task of work/occupation. The primary capability to sustain ourselves (food, shelter, protection from dangers) in order to stay alive, progressing towards a level of abilities to contribute to society. If I don't sustain myself, what will I have to do? I will have to find someone to support me. I will live at the mercy of others and I will be in a position where I compromise myself to obtain support in fulfilling my own needs. We spend at least 8 hours a day on work, and extrapolating, we easily reach a third of life invested just in this task. There are many skills necessary to fulfill this task, and here I mention a key one, namely responsibility. I like P. Rasmussen's definition of responsibility, which is the ability to also do what we don't like in order to achieve the goal of feeling "good" and avoiding, as much as possible, feeling "bad".
Friendship/Social. Accepting the social task, social interdependence, and relating to society. We are born entirely dependent on our mother, father, family. Relatively quickly we discover that we are surrounded by other people besides our family, and we begin to explore and live the social realm through friends, neighbors, and colleagues, through kindergarten, school, college, occupation and hobbies, travels, etc. Already around the age of 3-4 we begin to discover the world through the lens of independence, for which we fight and demand our rights for a lifetime, often forgetting to see that the world we chose to live in is rather one of interdependence. The period of this year 2020, in which restrictions kept us further away than usual from our friends and colleagues, was perhaps "sweetened" by the existence of increasingly diverse and efficient means of communication. I mentioned communication, a skill whose meaning will only truly be felt once we pair it with cooperation as a key ability in carrying out and balancing the social task.
Intimacy/Family. A topic with an aura of need, desire, value, taboo, controversy and social disagreements at the same time. We would not exist as human beings without intimacy. Intimacy starts from the primary need to manage sexual energy and to find a way to satisfy this need, going all the way to the complexity and approach of gender concepts, feminine and masculine (including their nuances), and finding a way to live together in balance and equal opportunity. One of the most important skills to carry out this task in balance is respect, both for others and for oneself at the same time.
Because each of our families is not limited to just a couple or a couple with children, but extends to our parents and relatives, the concept of extended family takes on a relevant nuance through taking care of those in our responsibility, discovering and manifesting together what emotional connection and sharing of experiences mean as a foundation of the social realm. Christmas is the time of year when this task manifests itself predominantly, this year being one in which life's challenges can bring us closer to becoming aware of the fragile balance of life and the support we receive from and offer to family, friends, colleagues and fellow human beings.
The Self. The capability to take care of ourselves. There are many situations in which we focus either only on ourselves (the egotistical sense) or, in opposition, we focus only on the good of others (the altruistic sense). Taking care of ourselves means taking care of our education, our continuous development, our fundamental physical and psychological needs. Often this task is defined by family, community, society, which set the standards of what a "fulfilled" life means. In the last 40 years, people have understood, perhaps more than ever, the need for balance between what society demands from the individual and what the individual can truly offer and contribute. In terms of the self's task, some of the most important skills we need to explore, develop and manifest are resilience, as the ability to face any challenge brought by life, and the courage to turn them into opportunities both at the level of self and for the community/society.
Spirituality. The capability to establish our place in the universe and to make peace with the essential questions, for example "why?", "why are we here?", "what is life and what is the meaning of life?", "does God exist?", "why do good people suffer?", "is there life after death?". This reconciliation may also mean accepting that we do not know and do not understand everything about life, but that we will give our best in this existence. Rooted in the Latin "spiritus", coming from "spirare" – breath, this human capability, fully realized, shows us how we relate to life, how we create that flow through which we manage, more or less, to move through time and circumstances, so that we experience as much "good" as possible and as little "bad" as possible, in a permanent search for balance among all the tasks of life.
How I manage Christmas … and Life in balance
JM Robinson tells us that "to know many things – to know the causes of thunder, lightning and earthquakes – is good; but it may be even better to understand the single thing that underlies everything – the thought that drives all things through all things. This is wisdom". I allow myself to transform what Robinson says into: To know aspects related to logistics, production, sales, marketing, IT, finance, HR, business in general – is good; but the wisdom to balance life's tasks, beyond awareness, at the level of action and movement, is the challenge for each of us throughout our entire life. This is wisdom.
To reinforce this wisdom, at the end of the story I ask you a few questions as a subject for reflection and for managing Christmas, as a metaphor for life in general: "does work take the lion's share among your life's tasks, to the detriment of the other lions of life (life tasks)?", "what does each life task mean and how do you approach it?", "on a scale from 1 ("on the ground") to 10 ("extraordinary") how do you perceive yourself in relation to each life task?", "depending on the scores you gave yourself in the previous question, what concrete steps (e.g.: skill development and concrete actions) can you take to advance by one or even two points on each task?", "what kind of support (family, friends, HR, manager, trainer, coach, wizard, etc.) do you need to achieve this balance?", "what will your life look like if you take those concrete steps?"
On December 21, 2020, the Great Conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn took place. The next meetings between Jupiter and Saturn will take place in November 2040 and April 2060, and during these two events the planets will appear at a distance of 1.1 degrees apart. To see the next very close "cosmic meeting" we will have to wait until March 2080. Don't wait for the Christmas of those years to take concrete steps regarding the balance of life's tasks! Start with this Christmas and may the opportunity of this newly realized balance be set in motion in your life and in the lives of those around you! Ah… and don't forget that balance itself is in constant motion and change, a challenge that is part of the gift of life!
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
Author
Andi Beldianu
(see LinkedIn Profile)