Today was a fasting day!
Although I have a reputation as being quite relaxed and unfazed by adversity I think I am still further than I would like to being a Zen Master. When things that I care about or that I have committed to others don't go as planned I don't have the ability to just let go. I had promised to send a client a revised proposal for a big project which we are close to winning by today. The client expected it during the day and called me at 7 PM to ask me why he had not received it yet. I told him that there were some internal procedures which needed to be finalised but he should have it quickly. I then had to wait 3 hours while different people involved decided whether we should have a comma here or a semicolon there! Finally I was able to send something which was not substantively different from what everybody had agreed to 6 hours earlier. My point here isn't about the total stupidity of the process, its about the fact that I wasn't able to just accept that it was out of my hands and I could not do more than I had done. For 3 hours I could feel myself boiling inside (similar to when I'm stuck in a traffic jam) which is probably not good for my mental or physical health. What's interesting is that this is not systematic, I don't get as upset for train or plane delays for example.
So still work to do to attain perfect detachment!
Although I have a reputation as being quite relaxed and unfazed by adversity I think I am still further than I would like to being a Zen Master. When things that I care about or that I have committed to others don't go as planned I don't have the ability to just let go. I had promised to send a client a revised proposal for a big project which we are close to winning by today. The client expected it during the day and called me at 7 PM to ask me why he had not received it yet. I told him that there were some internal procedures which needed to be finalised but he should have it quickly. I then had to wait 3 hours while different people involved decided whether we should have a comma here or a semicolon there! Finally I was able to send something which was not substantively different from what everybody had agreed to 6 hours earlier. My point here isn't about the total stupidity of the process, its about the fact that I wasn't able to just accept that it was out of my hands and I could not do more than I had done. For 3 hours I could feel myself boiling inside (similar to when I'm stuck in a traffic jam) which is probably not good for my mental or physical health. What's interesting is that this is not systematic, I don't get as upset for train or plane delays for example.
So still work to do to attain perfect detachment!
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