Do the dance…
If you are looking at the title and feel like ‘Nah! I have two left feet’, then you are at the right place! I read about the ‘flow’ state a while ago, and it is the state you go into, when you are really focused on what you are doing. It is when, while you are doing something, you don’t realize the time, the things around you, and you wouldn’t know if the fire alarm even went off. This is the state in which one could achieve seemingly unattainable goals. I’m sure you must have been in one of these ‘flow’ states and you would have solved problems that you didn’t think you could solve, and you did! I’m writing about this today, because I took my son to his table tennis tournament yesterday (he has been practicing for about seven months now), and I saw almost all the kids ‘dancing’ there. I hope I’m able to describe what I saw, the way I would like to… So, there are these kids, and some of these are hardly seven years old… One of them is a little girl, and her head is hardly visible over the TT table. She is lean, wearing a pink jumper and black leggings (it is winter here), and I’m hoping she is at least able to serve and get the ball to the other side (me with my unconscious bias and judgements). The game starts, and she gets into her stance, and that’s when I realize how wrong I was. She taps the ball on the table, as if she knows every bounce and curve, takes it in her hand, and looks as if it is the most amazing thing in the world, and then hits it with the bat with a grace, and then starts ‘dancing’ with the bat… in whatever direction the ball comes in. Her body gets into this rhythm and when you are looking at her, you know her mind and body don’t care about this world anymore. How many times have you been able to reach this state of mind? Are you able to do it when you want? For example, there is a critical situation at work… the deployed code is messing up things and causing you or your org to lose millions every second. Are you able to get into your ‘dance’ immediately and figure out a solution, without getting bogged by the enormity of the situation? if you are, you have figured out. I’m not sure if I have. I have been trying to, and I feel those few hours in the mornings (from my 5 am club journey), just fly by. So, I’m hoping I’m able to get into my dance during that time. Also, when I’m at work (especially in the current scenario when most of us are working from home), I feel because I’m all alone, in a room, with my desk and my laptop, without any distractions (although distractions shouldn’t matter for someone who has mastered it), I feel I’m able to achieve the flow for at least a few minutes at a stretch.
What is your dance? Have you found it yet?