We have often heard that Life is our greatest teacher. If you actually think of it, what life is is actually a series of events and how we react to them.
As we become more aware and mindful of what is happening around us, to us and how we are reacting, we can learn a lot of potent lessons. And this is exactly why Life is a great teacher.
I have now started a series where I’d like to share everyday events, how I reacted to them and what’s the lesson I learned. Hopefully, these posts will be useful to you as well.
Here is my first post in this series. The term first post implies that more will follow. After all, life continues teaching us lessons as long as we live. There really is no vacation time in life.
So here goes.
Event
Last week when I was in my exercise class- and this was Valentine’s Day- the thought suddenly came to my mind as to where did I put my keys. I was thinking of both my house keys and the car keys. I had been thoroughly enjoying the dance routine, as it was a special Valentine’s Day class, when this thought about the keys came to me apparently out of the blue.
I immediately stepped out of the routine and walked towards the shelf tops in the studio to check if I had placed my keys there. I did see some keys, but they didn’t look like mine. Obviously, those keys belonged to someone else. I was still in the ‘no panic’ zone. Surely I had slipped them into the pocket of my jacket that was hanging innocently on the stretching bar right there. Uh..oh..no keys in the jacket after a thorough search of the pockets.
Maybe I absently slipped them into my bag itself. Hurried, now slightly panic stricken searching of the bag revealed no keys. Now, I was really wondering what could have happened. So, in our class, as part of the routine, we have to walk up 7 flights of stairs. I thought that perhaps, the keys fell off my pocket when I was walking up. I immediately went down stairs by lift and climbed up 7 floors scanning along the way for the keys. And guess what I got in return- an elevated heart rate due to the extra round of stairs exercise, but no keys.
My mind was already making plans. How am I going to handle this? Will this affect our safety as the house keys are missing. Of course we have a spare set of car keys. To say that I was upset would be an understatement. But I tried to keep it under control.
I started focusing on the solution rather than the problem, I spoke to Ankit (the guy in charge), asking him to look for my keys and to inform me when they do turn up. I walked back into class.
Dev (the teacher) asked me what was going on. I replied that apparently I have misplaced my keys. He picked up the keys lying on the shelf top and asked me, “Are these yours” and magically they were. These were the same set of keys I had seen earlier and decided that they were not mine. Can you imagine!!!
So what exactly happened here? What changed and what lessons can we learn from this.
Lessons to be Learned
1. Sometimes the Solution is Right in Front of You
When you are grappling with a problem, and you look at various avenues to resolve it, it is always a good idea to check the obvious solution first. Sometimes problems are not really not as complicated as we make them out to be in our head. While thinking out of the box is good, often the simplest solution may actually resolve the problem.
I had perhaps already made up my mind that the keys have fallen out somewhere. Hence though the keys were right there, I couldn’t see them. In fact, this brings me to the second lesson.
Approach Any Problem with an Open Mind
When there is a problem, promise yourself to approach it with no preconceived notions. The fact is you will achieve what you believe. If you already believe that the keys are lost, you can never find them even if they are right there, staring you in your face, In fact, you just think they belong to someone else.
When you have already decided what the problem is, and also decided what the solution is, you will likely remain closed to other approaches. This will cost you dearly in terms of time. What could have been readily resolved, will now take more time.
Never discount the power of your thoughts to influence your actions. You will act the way your thoughts lead you to. And this brings me to lesson 3
3) Your Thoughts Drive Your Actions. Focus on Your Goals
You will always act the way you think. In this case, somehow, I was convinced that keys had fallen away somewhere on the stairs. And further, as I was in the exercise class, I wanted to utilize the opportunity to get in one more round of stairs. So I took the elevator to go down and came up walking looking for the keys.
Did you spot the flaw??
My real purpose here was to look for the keys and not exercise, correct? So I could have walked down the stairs, looking for the keys, along the way and come up by the elevator. That would have been quicker and would have conserved energy as well.
As we move through life and work, we are always setting multiple goals in different areas of our life. However, at every point, we need to focus on one goal at a time to get it done. Exercise and Finding my keys, both were goals for me that day. But at that particular instance, the goal of finding the keys was more critical. So I should have focused on the solution that would have helped me achieve that goal most efficiently (walk down and come up by the elevator). However, because I didn’t think through and failed to prioritize my goals, the path I took was not so efficient.
4) Ask for Help
As I came up, Dev (the teacher) asked me what was wrong. I shared the issue with him. He immediately pointed to keys lying on the shelf top, which were of course mine. That helped me attend the rest of the class in a relaxed frame of mind. Or else I would have been wondering about the keys and would not have been able to focus on the class.
The lesson here is if we ask for help, we usually receive it. And the fresh pair of eyes helps. There is nothing heroic about suffering due to a problem. And true, heroism is having the courage to share the problem and asking for help. This course of action is more likely to help resolve the issue.
Thus I to end my first post. I look forward to your comments.
howfarhownear 