One of the most difficult things in the world to do is to consciously act like your natural self. Too often does something happen in life where we think, “Now, self don’t get all weird.” and shortly after, we become babbling fools.
A perfect example that comes to mind was when I started my current job. I work as an IT manager and was meeting with an application owner on supporting her specific application. We were just chatting about the support structure, hours, etc, when out of the blue she lifted her leg and ripped a nice loud fart. I immediately think to myself, “Ok, it’s nothing, a mere cultural difference, let it go”. Yet there I was, sitting red faced, choking down a chortle and trying to conduct business. Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t working very well. To compound the problem, every time I tried to calm myself down, it got worse. I would picture her leg lifting and then the sound would reverberate in my head. I though to myself “STOP THINKING ABOUT IT!” My brain would quickly reply, “Stop thinking about what?” That mental process became exponential. I had to quickly excuse myself to go and laugh it off in the hallway. Childish? You bet, but then again, I’m a dick and fart joke type of guy.
That brings me to the point of this discussion though, why does this happen to all of us? Well firstly, we have certain “standards” in this society that says we shouldn’t laugh at such things that it is not polite or proper. Why? Well, I don’t know, but unfortunately to get by in this working world, we must abide by certain standards or face the wrath of HR. But the second reason is our own doing.
I personally believe our brains get in the way of clear and often sane thought. We try so hard to see correct answers or convince ourselves of something when all we need to do is actually relax a little and not act natural, but to just be natural. In the very taoist sense, sometimes you just need to let things happen instead of trying to make them happen. When we lose our car keys, we find them when we stop looking.
