We’re living in turbulent times as I’m sure we’re all noticing. We’re faced with multiple escalating crises all over the world that, due to their complexity, we can’t solve right away. There are no quick fixes available for each of them as much as we would like.
According to Ray Dalio in his book ‘Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order (Why Nations Succeed and Fail) this is a normal phenomenon following patterns that many civilisations have followed over the centuries. The western world is in decline and especially China is on the rise. Although he stipulates that he doesn’t say that countries like the USA will fall apart, the evidence doesn’t leave much room for another conclusion. When left to our devices we overspend, print money, and allow the wealth gap to widen which in itself fuels social unrest as German insurer Allianz is now warning for.
It leaves me with a question: how can each of us be, in order to make a different course of events possible? Indeed, I’m focussing on the being rather than the doing, to which we have been condemned for centuries. Learning to be will inform the actions we need to take probably in a different way. I’m not saying that the only thing everybody needs to do is to sit and do nothing. But rather become still before we get to doing and perhaps collect different information.
Here’s an invitation: from today onward find a few minutes every day during which you do nothing. No email, no quick glancing on a news site, no social media, no fiddling around with your smartphone. Just sit still. You can gaze out of the window, by all means. And then notice what is shifting in your mind or in your body perhaps. What is different from when you were busy? You can do this more than once of course and very likely quite a few of you may have a practice for stillness (around breathing for example) already.
Yet, I’m inviting all of you to start practising this and feel free to let me know what you are noticing.
Geert Hofman 