Zen & The Art of Strolling



This article originally appears in the Fall 2010 print issue of El Iluminador.

Every time we embark on a new phase of our life the demands on our time begin to change and what we did yesterday is no longer what we need to do, can do or have time to do today.  College students experience this every semester and to an even greater degree at the start of the school year.  The best thing that we can do to combat the changing demands on our time is to work ourselves into a rhythm.  Those of us who are strollers out there know what it’s like to catch a rhythm.  To go from absolutely still to suddenly breaking out into a precision format at the first sounds of Rick James or Swag Surfin’.  Hitting every step; matching your brothers, stride for stride, and flowing with the beat.

No brother though, regardless of how much rhythm he has, masters a stroll right away.  It takes practice, practice and more practice to hit the floor with confidence in front of a crowd of people.  And once you’re out there you can’t just quit if you miss a beat or lose a step you’ve got to jump right back in the mix, moving on and forgetting that the mistake ever happened.  Our daily life does not differ much from this – just like there’s a rhythm to a song that gets us moving and keeps us focused, there is also a rhythm to our lives.  In both strolling and our daily lives it is all too easy to miss a step, lose the beat and become unfocused; but just like when you’re out there strolling, regardless of missteps or mistakes you’ve got to keep on moving.

Whenever I use to learn a new stroll my line brother and I would pick a song that we felt worked with the rhythm of the moves.  We didn’t deviate from that song until we got the steps down to perfection.  Using the same beat over and over again it was easier to match the moves to the rhythm and get in the flow.  Needless to say the stroll always looked the best when we had a chance to do it with the song we had been practicing it on all week but by that point we were able to perform it to any song with a similar beat.  Using a schedule on a regular basis and making sure it is up to date every week is a great tool to help you catch the flow of your life.  By visualizing your week and keeping regular track of it you’ll begin to catch the patterns and ride through the week like you stroll on a beat.

Whether you’re just learning a stroll or you’ve been doing it for years, eventually, you’re gonna miss a step or make a mistake.  While a master stroller recovers quickly, any mistake has the possibility of throwing the whole line off.  For this reason it’s critical to be able to jump back into a stroll regardless of the point you leave off on.  If you can’t catch the beat again or remember what comes next, it’s usually a good idea to jump out of the line and jump back in at the end once the steps start over.  If you’ve been keeping a schedule, you may be able to jump right back into the mix, acting like the misstep never took place.  Or maybe you have another technique to get yourself going again.  Personally I combine my schedule with the Urgent-Important To-Do List matrix discussed in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  The combo of these two insures that 80% of the time I’m able to jump right back in like I never missed a beat.

However there’s still that 20% of the time that I get so lost that I’ve got to jump out of the line and start over from step one in the sequence.  In my life there are a few things that I can always count on to get me back on track and moving again.  One is a call to my wife, my parents, or my line brothers.  These are the people who know me best and can easily tell when there’s something a little off in my life.  We don’t always need to talk about exactly what’s going on that is throwing me for a loop but just having a conversation with them is usually enough to get me going again.  If that doesn’t seem to work I make sure to get myself back into a work-out schedule.  Having that set time where I go to the gym and work on improving myself physically enables me to also clear myself mentally and get back in the stroll.  While these things work for me, they may not work for you.  I encourage you to find a few activities that can focus you and get you back into the rhythm of your life.

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