When is the last time you took a risk? How did it work out?
I have had a fairly stop start month in April. It’s been the type of month where things seem ready to move forward but something stops them from doing so. I was asked if I could be available for teaching at very short notice. The original email seemed to indicate a firm requirement so I was really looking forward to it. Instead it turned out to be a ‘just in case’ situation and the wording was definitely open to interpretation. I was waiting for the voluntary work to start but for some reason the school haven’t got back to the charity I am volunteering for. Finally, I am waiting for confirmation of the summer teaching I will be getting and that wait goes on. I suppose that’s the risk of finishing full time work. There! I answered the question even if it’s the same one as the last three days! It’s actually a good test to continue with my daily routine of writing a blog post when the prompt is repetitive and poorly thought out.
Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
These prompts seem to be stuck in a rut at the moment. So, for today I will zoom out and look at what a risk is.
To some, a risk will mean doing something very much out of the ordinary. I suppose an example of that would be the decision we took to take the job offer in Japan. It made sense at the time because I had no other option, if I wanted to return to teaching, so was it really a risk? To others a risk is making one decision when you could make another and it’s something we do every day, multiple times a day even if that decision seems to be a huge one. I can look at the way in which I decided to finish full time work but that was not one decision as such but the culmination of a series of decisions over a period of time. By the time I had made the decision to leave INTO it was a very straightforward one even if it appeared to be fairly major to my colleagues.
It is probably very much easier for us to look at big and small decisions that take our lives forward rather than risks. When we think about risk we can equate it to danger and find ourselves dissuaded from taking a decision that is, in every sense, logical and simple as well as correct. It is a realisation I have come to quite late in my conscious mind but one that my unconscious mind has long accepted. So, take those decisions with a clear mind and make them with confidence.
Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?
I have a problem with replaying previous decisions in my head. It happens less often than it used to, but whenever I do it, it isn’t pointless, that would be bad enough, it’s actively damaging. Whatever you decide in terms of what you could have done you can’t return to the time and change it, so what is the point? Over the years this has been an issue that has caused me to develop paralysis by analysis. It has caused me to second guess good decisions and to go ahead with bad decisions. In reality, all you can do is to make the best of your decision at the time the decision is made. Yes, if it doesn’t work you look at the situation and try to learn lessons, but don’t think, ‘What if?’ because that only makes things worse.
As I look at the present I am happy that this constant merry go round of my brain is starting to reduce. In the future I hope to reduce it to nearly nothing. If I look at a decision I made 40 or 50 years ago I learn absolutely nothing because I was such a different person then. I will try my best to stop doing it entirely and I strongly urge you to follow my lead.
What makes you nervous?
Pretty much everything! It’s something of a running joke in the family which comes from a place of affection so I don’t really mind it. The interesting question is why? When you are a nervous person it starts in childhood and it affects every decision you make from then on. For me, a childhood of regular bullying at school which happened in my earlier primary schools and of course my awful secondary school, the Maths School, about which I have written on many occasions. That makes you constantly on guard and on edge over a whole range of issues.
Over the last few years I have been working on my nerves with some success thanks to meditation especially my Calm App. It has given me the opportunity to put my fears in their proper perspective and to some extent that has helped me to become more balanced in my perception of risk. I still have the instant reaction to the situation but I am now able to see that as merely the first stage of the process. I used to get stuck at the first stage but now I have the tools to work my way past it and put any risk, physical and emotional, into it’s proper perspective. It seems strange that it has taken me so long to do that, but society is very good at making things difficult and very bad at helping you deal with those difficulties. Looking back, I wish meditation had come into my life much earlier, but I was lucky enough to meet Janet whose love and guidance has helped me to face my fears and find practical ways of dealing with them. She gave me the confidence to take mental risks like working abroad and because of that we have had experiences that very few other people have been lucky enough to have.
I look at myself with more understanding and compassion than I used to. I tell myself it’s natural to be nervous after my childhood experiences but when I look back at my decisions over the years I have really taken life on. Perhaps, deep down, I am not as nervous as I think I am, but on the surface and in the moment I think I always will be.
How do you unwind after a demanding day?
I often think back to the time I was working as a full time teacher and I remember what demanding days used to do to me and how often they just stayed with me throughout the evening and into the next day. At the time I didn’t seem to have a good approach to relaxing but I now see that it was not working, because the demands of teaching are not ones that disappear when you leave work. They are a cumulative process that builds over many months and years.
The approach I take to relaxing now is, on the face of it, very similar to the one I took when I was working. I cook, I watch TV, I scroll, although as I discussed yesterday far less than I used to and I use the Calm app before going to sleep. The difference is that I know I have more time to reflect and relax the following day to enable me to come to terms with any lingering stress. When you are working, the stress doesn’t end, it just ebbs and flows, often without you realising, because it is simply the background noise to your life. After I finished full time work it took me two or three months to get rid of the fight or flight mentality. (Actually I always preferred my old biology teacher’s variation on that theme. He, far more accurately, described it as ‘S*** or Sprint’!) I now have a much more relaxed and focused life with fewer distractions. There is part of me which feels guilty about no longer doing something to earn money – the result of upbringing and the good old protestant work ethic! – but the more reflective part acknowledges the value I still create at home. The house is my domain and I am proud of what I do inside the house as I was when I was a full time house husband and as I was as a teacher. Shutting the world out is my way of unwinding but it works so much better now that there is less stress to unwind from!
