Riding the wave when you're overwhelmed

Fridge Philosophy

Note: Since 2018, I have placed these short quotes on our refrigerator at home to provide subtle hints for successful, thoughtful, and purposeful practices in hopes my teens would internalize them. Along the way, I found them helpful in my own life.

Sri Swami Satchidananda was one of the great Yoga masters to bring the classical Yoga tradition to the West in the 1960s.

Imagine being at your job. It’s crunch time. There are big deadlines and high stakes. There are collaborators, bureaucracies, and chains of command to navigate. When the pressure mounts, what happens? Does one worry about everything that could affect the outcome, or focus on the controllables and anticipate ways they can adjust if things change in a moment?

With everything swirling around, the tendency is to place greater significance to each moment, interaction, and transgression. We like to find something to grasp and grip on tightly, thinking that controlling something is better than losing yourself in the flow of everything.

Photo by Croyde Bay on Unsplash

I live in California, and when I’m at the beach, I will sit and watch the surfers and amateur boogie boarders tackle the Pacific Ocean. As they walk into the water, experienced surfers will dive into the waves as they paddle out to their spots. Boogie boarders, who often don’t have a lot of experience navigating the surf will either try to jump the waves or power their way through them. They want to control the wave, instead of submitting to its power.

Often, control is about power and lack of trust. When more and more things are coming at me, my natural tendency is to lock everything down and hold on. This can lead to anxiety, which adds to more pressure and a doom loop.

Rather, it’s advisable to lean into what is under your direct control and look for ways to adjust along the way. There will always be external forces that can throw us off our trajectories. It could be a dream project going away, layoffs, family strife, breakups and more. But how do we react when the waves hit? Do we try to avoid the wave, turn our back to it to power through, or dive into it?

Satchinanda wants us to surf when the power is overwhelming, and it feels as if we’re drowning. Staying on top of wave allows you to see the breaks and adjust. We will never be able to control the power of the ocean, but we can control how we surf through it.

How do you ride the wave?

Side of Mustard…

• Coach Prime: That was an amazing win by the University of Colorado over Texas Christian University. TCU was in the National Championship Game a year ago. Colorado won two games and then Colorado hired NFL legend and Jackson State Coach Deion Sanders to take over its program. I’ve watched Sanders’ motivational speeches on Instagram. I do believe he walks the walk. He teaches great life lessons… Except One. In turning over the program at Colorado, he basically released the majority of his squad and brought in more than 80 new players. Here’s the problem I have. These are athletes who committed to Colorado. The University made a commitment to these kids and their families. Now, they are left to fend for themselves. With Sanders’s success, will other schools and coaches do the same? The transformation of college football to NFL development league is ascending to another level. At some point, when does college football just cast away the disguise and admit that it doesn’t care about the student athlete?

  

• Hijack: If you have Apple+ and you haven’t watched Hijack with Idris Elba, highly recommend. Think an episode of 24, but instead of 24 hours in a day, you’re on a plane for just six and you’ve got one man who’s going to thwart this hijacking experience. There’s a moment in the second-to-last episode that still has me surprised and makes me think about the importance of redundancies, even if you’re trying to crash a plane.

  

• Last gasps of the DCEU: Labor Day Weekend and had a day to do nothing. Decided to watch the Flash, Black Adam and Shazam: Fury of the Gods. We know the Snyderverse is dead, and that James Gunn is bringing his quirky Guardians of the Galaxy vision to the DC Comics on screen, but I watched to realize what might have been. None of these movies were good. The Flash had great potential, particularly with Michael Keaton back as Batman. It still felt stale. Black Adam was just awful and Shazam? Did it really need a sequel to begin with? The problem for me was lack of continuity. Instead of building block-by-block, the DCEU tried to build a skycraper before securing the foundation. Man of Steel started as a great cornerstone, but after that, flimsy at best. In my mind, the superhero genre peaked with Endgame. Now, it is trying to chase the money and the hype, and it will never succeed.