I am starting the New Year by teaching a thermodynamics course that is new for me. There are so many details to attend to and to learn, that it feels like I don’t have a minute to stop and think about what is it that I am actually doing. Surprisingly, it is a liberating feeling to not have a choice of what to do in the next hour, but instead to have an obvious high-priority task in front of me at all times and to know that as soon as it is completed, another one would waiting in line right behind it.
This externally imposed state of focus is strikingly similar to skiing, or any gravity-assisted sport for that matter, where external conditions continuously and rapidly change and force you to adapt to them. When you are going down a mountain slope at high speed, turns, bumps on the ground and other people come your way all the time, and you must deal with each challenge, focussing only what is right in front of you at each moment . The same thing happens when you are skateboarding or surfing: you need to continuously adjust your balance, adapt to conditions of the road and avoid obstacles. When my daughter was taking skateboarding lessons last summer, her teacher, Carla, called this concentrated attention forced mindfulness.
For me, the takeaway from this observation is that doing demanding work, like teaching a new course, doesn’t have to be stressful. It is all a matter perspective. After all, when I ski down a mountain and have to deal with whatever is coming my way, I don’t consider it a stress. In fact, I enjoy the flow. It may be forced, but it is flow nonetheless.
