We need to be fast. Very fast. The life we live today demands our energy and responsiveness every second of the day. We live in the “jumpy” age. And there are consequences on living in this age. Fast heart, irritability, insomnia, stress. It’s hard to avoid these symptoms because we don’t give our bodies the brake needed to cool down. So it’s more important now than ever to learn how to respond to everything using the minimun amount of energy needed. Sounds like i’m talking about accounting but not nearly. Is not easy to learn how to spend the minimun energy in an upsetting event for an example. How to argue about parenting being the less angry possible. How to fight for your rights without getting a headache. One might think i’m suggesting the old “count to 10” method and that’s not very far from the truth. Not the actual counting but the idea to analize our “heat” level and push the plug when necessary. We must find ways to protect our self from all the madness without leaving the asylum. I found in chinese meditation a great help for that kind of issue. The problem is that i’m not able to meditate during a business meeting. I believe breathing right is one of the keys because it forces you to slow your pace and listening to your body and loosing your shoulders if you are tense can help. But then the problem may be that sometimes we need to be so focused and ready that we can’t disconnect it doesn’t matter how damaging is the situation. I see as a last resource to remain calm and prepare some time off afterwords. It can be two minutes but two well used minutes where i’ll slow down and focus on myself. That work pretty fine. Those things are very important and we need hiding places during the day for the sake of our sanity. The most important thing of all though is to say no when you need to and not do give more than you have to offer. Many people are skilled in making us think we gotta do it and do it now. It’s like hipnosis. But the thing is: we don’t always have to do it. Sometimes we have to say no and leave the weight to someone else to carry. We are already all the time under the spotlight so we gotta take care not to burn ourselves.