When we cling to the troubling emotions that result from an obstacle or loss, we abandon the present for the past. In short order, we find ourselves using our personal resources to wage an internal war instead of using them to handle what is going on now and move forward. By focusing on a past problem it becomes easy to believe that things have taken a turn for the worse. In not being awake to the present, we magnify the original loss, allowing it to produce a ripple effect of additional problems. These, in turn, take us even further off a course of growth. We must stay cool under fire and fully in the present to glean the most we can from every experience and achieve success.
In Josh’s Words:
“In every discipline, the ability to be clearheaded, present, cool under fire is much of what separates the best from the mediocre. In competition, the dynamic is often painfully transparent. If one player is serenely present while the other is being ripped apart by internal issues, the outcome is already clear. The prey is no longer objective, makes compounding mistakes, and the predator moves in for the kill.” p 172
Further reading: Chapter 5: The Power of Presence, Chapter 6: The Downward Spiral
From THE ART OF LEARNING by Josh Waitzkin. Copyright © 2007 by Josh Waitzkin LLC.
Reprinted by permission of Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc
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December 20th, 2010 at 3:13 am
Wow! What a story. Somehow I will combine Josh’s thoughts about parallel lines with a 7th grade geometry lesson… you can have two parallel lines running along-side one another. Sometimes a line stops and a person’s life and potential is shortened from a moving line to a segment. The person feels only the negativity that a certain event/ point caused and lives in regret or sadness or anger… unable to march forward with time. He or she doesn’t remember the joy felt in early childhood and doesn’t look forward to loving tomorrow. Even before death a life can be shortened and limited if it’s not lived passionately.
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