Balancing Proactivity with Patience

At Freedom Focused, we often teach the truism that TRUTH is PARADOXICAL. We do so because understanding the paradoxical nature of truth is absolutely indispensable to earning the highest levels of Existential Growth.

What exactly does it mean when I say: "Truth is Pardoxical?"

Good Question!

It means that any truth usually carries with it a corollary truth that may initially appear or seem to contradict the very principle with which it harmonizes. That's a mouthful... so it's usually easier if I illustrate the point with some specific examples and simple aphorisms.   

Example #1: In order to build your muscles up stronger, you must first tear down their fibers so that, through natural repair processes, they can then be enhanced beyond their original state. 

Example #2: If you seek authentic personal success or greatness, you must forget about pursuing both and dedicate yourself to a cause greater than yourself or a person/s other than yourself. Then, in the words of Viktor Frankl, "success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it." 

"Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it."*

— Viktor Frankl   

Example #3:  The best romantic relationships tend to flower when you are not intentionally pursuing romance. In the words of the poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox: All love that has not friendship for its base is like a mansion built upon the sand.

"All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon the sand."

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Click HERE to read Wilcox's full POEM: Upon the Sand  

Aphorism #1: Less is more.

Aphorism #2: "Try hard not to try so hard!"**

Trying too hard to get, do, or be something usually undercuts your efforts to achieve. It's like a golfer who swings her club too hard in an effort to hit the ball as far as she possibly can, and in the process ends up either shanking the ball off the fairway, or worse—missing the ball and hitting the ground. Or, like an automobile driver who overcorrects a steering error and ends up rolling his vehicle instead of getting back on track between the lines.  

Aphorism #3:  "Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself; sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof."  —Jesus

Obviously we need to learn from the past and plan/prepare for the future. But if we fail to fully and effectively live in the present, we will fail to maximize our present power, no matter how effective our plans may be.

Click HERE to learn more about the Power of Living in the Present.    

The  P/PC  Balance

Dr. Stephen Covey famously taught a principle he called the "P/PC Balance." In this example, "P" stands for "Production" and "PC" stands for "Production Capability."

If a person, team, or piece of equipment spends too much time producing and not enough time caring for and properly maintaining one's self, group, or tools, the result will inevitably be damage and burnout, which, in-turn, undercuts—or even devastates—production.

If an individual, team, or tool is to maximize production in the long run, one must focus on production capacity all along the way.

That's just the way things are.

That's why you get your car's oil changed. It's also why you visit the doctor, dentist, and/or other healthcare professionals on a regular basis—whether you are presently feeling any pain, or not. It's also why we take time off on the weekends, spend quality time with those we love, celebrate birthdays and holidays, and go on vacations. It's why we take walks, exercise, engage in recreation, swallow our vitamins and otherwise tend to our nutrition. It's also why we read, study, ponder, and pray and/or meditate.

It's not how fast you start the race.
It's how well you pace the race!

A common mistake human beings often make is exercising impatience with the P/PC balance principle. When we get impatient, we make decisions aimed at boosting production results in the short-run. While initially beneficial—or at least seemingly so—such decisions inevitably come at the expense of our long-term production capability. It's like a distance runner who starts a race too fast—a mistake I often made as a young and inexperienced runner. It feels good to start off faster than everybody else and find yourself in the lead after the first lap of a mile race. The problem is that you still have three (3) laps to go! I've learned from first-hand experience that the thrill of being in first place after the first lap does not compensate for the embarrassment of being passed up by a crowd of runners who chose to wisely pace themselves for the full-distance of the race. Such impulsive moves only betray your own impatience and immaturity as a competitor. 

Life is full of opportunities for service, contribution, and achievement—the successful pursuit of which demands that we properly balance proactivity with patience. If we fail to properly achieve this balance, we will fail to reach our full potential in whatever we set out to do.

Understanding the importance of this balance—and effectively implementing it into my personal and professional pursuits—has been paramount to my greatest successes in the past, and is similarly crucial to whatever I aim to accomplish in the future. 

One of biggest reasons I failed so often in my romantic pursuits (before I met Lina) was because I was often too impatient. I wanted to see results in my dating life immediately. But let's face it, that's not how love usually works. It took a long time to win Lina's heart. Four months passed in between our first date and our first kiss. And an entire year passed in between deciding to date exclusively and becoming engaged. It was then another six months before we were married. If I had not been willing to exercise great amounts of patience in my pursuit of Lina, she never would have felt comfortable dating me, and I never would have won her heart. This same scenario has played out in other areas of my life and career as well. After 18 years of diligent toil, focused effort, and steady growth and improvement, Freedom Focused is still not my full-time job. But with patience, I get a little bit closer with each and every blog article I publish.  

I confess that PATIENCE been a difficult lesson for me to learn, and I am not alone in my experience of this challenge. For me, the reason for its difficulty lies, in part, in the fact that I am naturally more proactive than I am patient. Proactivity is a wonderful trait; but like everything else, can get you into trouble if it is not balanced. I have always been an inherently hard working, proactive person. That is a good thing. But unbridled and bereft of patience, it tends to get me into trouble that is preventable.

To illustrate, athletes who train too hard tend to get injured. People who try too hard in relationships tend to push others away. Workaholics are usually not fun to be around, and may sacrifice their health, happiness, and personal relationships on the altar of career achievements. Entrepreneurs who are unwilling to adjust to market realities typically go out of business, and so on.  

As I have built Freedom Focused over the past 18 years, I have often had to learn to bridle my burning passion for action and temper it with patience. There have even been times when I've had to force myself to "sit still and wait" at various occasions and junctions. One of the hardest things for me to do is to sit still and do nothing; but there are times when the best possible course of action is inaction—strange as that may sound.  

It's not easy for me to sit still and not do anything. Action and proactivity are such fundamental elements of my nature and personality that it is usually easier to just jump in and take action. Nevertheless, there are times when the best thing you can possibly do in a situation is... absolutely nothing! There are times when we must work, and there are times when we must wait. If we fail to heed both commands in a wise, strategic, and disciplined manner, we will not succeed in the long run.

Thus it is that Longfellow exhorts us to "Learn to Labor and to Wait."*** And thus it is that the Good Book reminds us: "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose..." (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

Farmers understand that even their hardest labors and best efforts are at the mercy of the irrevocable laws of nature. No matter how ambitious one might sow, one must rely on the merits and mercies of nature to reap a bountiful harvest. And nature can sometimes be a punishing master. If you don't believe me, just ask any farmer who has lost a crop to the elements (e.g. hail, flooding, fire, etc.). Moreover, even with the best of luck with the weather, a farmer must WAIT for appointed passages of time before one can reap a mature harvest. Premature harvesting aimed at "seeing how the roots are doing" will undercut one's hard work every time. 

As self-action leaders, we must learn how to work hard and be diligent. But we must simultaneously develop our capacity to patiently wait upon natural forces over which we have no control. If we fail to do so, we will find that those same natural forces will, in time, have their own way with us, the results of which will be, to say the very least, undesirable.   

"Learn to Labor and to Wait."

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow        

-Dr. JJ

July 28, 2021

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA

Author's Note: This is the 222nd Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013. 

Click HERE for a compete listing of the other 221 FF Blog Articles.  

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Notes:

* From Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl

** This is a quote from the movie, The Disorderly Orderly, starring Jerry Lewis. The speaker of the quote is a nurse who is continually frustrated by the main character's (Lewis) annoying penchant of messing things up by trying too hard.  

*** From Longfellow's poem, A Psalm of Life