How to Resolve the Patience/Urgency Paradox and Increase our Capacity to Change.
Ksenia Makagonova from Unsplash.
The advocates who solely insist on patience often come from a privileged position relative to those who come from a place of urgency. This is true even when those calling for “patience” or “long-arc” approaches are themselves marginalized or oppressed.
Those coming from a place of urgency do so because they are the ones most oppressed/marginalized OR because they have information the others don’t.
So, let’s break down some of the urgent issues facing the planet today:
For those people fighting against gentrification in Santa Ana, CA, this issue is urgent for them because they could well become homeless if the phases of gentrification continues. Santa Ana is only in the 2nd out of the 6 stages of gentrification at this point. Someone even recently stated that “gentrification is genocide.”
Those who are aware that we really have only about 10 years to turn around the worldwide erosion and environmental devastation — this issue is urgent because they know the extent of the destruction going on that you don’t know yet because you’re still living relatively comfortable lives.
For the Parkland shooting survivors, the issue of gun control is very urgent as they just experienced so many of their friends murdered right before their eyes.
Those on the inside who are very well aware of how fucked up our economic system really is — for them, fixing this issue is very urgent. We really have less than 20 years before all the inflation we’ve been exporting comes back home and the dollar collapses as a result — and that’s a conservative estimate, an understatement. When that happens, queer women of color will most likely be the most devastated.
The most important thing to realize is that for these people, this isn’t a “passion” nor a “debate topic”. This part of their lived experience.
In response to all this urgency, some people advocate avoidance in the name of “rest” or “not burning out my nervous system”.
Sure, there’s a place for rest.
But I believe a more effective way is to
- increase our capacity to feel,
- increase our capacity for transformation,
- increase our capacity to process information/data
- change our diet for better nourishment and thus better energy (I will not address that in this article though because it’s complex and it’s up to each individual what kind of nourishment system is best for them).
Avoidance is not the answer.
Numbing is not the answer.
Patience is not the answer.
Even “rest” is an incomplete picture.
As mentioned above, the answer lies in 4 Parts. I will address 3 of them in this article.Let’s start with:
How do we increase our capacity for transformation?
Let’s begin by introducing a concept called “antifragility” originally coined by Nassim Nichole Taleb.
“Fragile” — breaks easily.
“Robust” — stays the same after stress or volatility…most people think this is the opposite of “fragile” but that’s like saying the opposite of “negative” is “neutral”…hence a new word was invented by Nassim Taleb…with some advanced math to prove it too (“Convex systems” versus “Concave systems” for example).
This new word is:
“Antifragile” — systems that actually get BETTER with disorder/stress/volatility/randomness/mistakes/accidents.
An analogy would be glass turning into diamonds after being dropped — not just resisting the pressure (robust/resilient) but actually getting better (“antifragile”).
Instead of avoidance, we need to build “antifragile” systems both in our communities and in our personal life-systems such as our energy, nourishment, emotional intelligence and environment.
“Antifragile” is how we increase our capacity for transformation.
Watch the animated book summary below for more information:
Next, how do we increase our capacity to feel?
We do that through:
- Asking Pain for its Message.
- Learning how to connect to the strong part of our bodies and the weak part of our bodies and then nourishing the weak part with the strong part. Listen to this Guided Meditation for that.
- Connecting the Patient/Restful Part of our Body with the Urgent/Passionate Part of Our body. Watch the video below for that:
4. Understand the Role of Anger and Other Difficult Emotions.
Watch the Guided Meditation Below for that:
Next, how do we increase our Capacity to Process Information?
For now, watch the two videos below for that:
How to have Unwavering Focus
How to Clear Mental Clutter with Sacred Geometry
Eventually, I will create my own video to add to the two videos above that powerfully combines everything I have learned regarding all this.
So…yes- the world is full of many urgent problems. I know that no one person can tackle them all. I know that each person must learn to pick their battles and focus on the problem or set of problems they are born to solve.
“If a fish was judged by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking it was stupid.” — Quote attributed to Albert Einstein.
And no one person can do this alone. We gotta connect with each other and learn how to co-create effective communities for change too.
And yet we must also realize that all these urgent problems are intertwined. The answer not avoidance. The answer is increasing our capacity for engagement, connection and community.
Enjoy!
About the Author Kundan Chhabra
Kundan helps you simplify your business as a vehicle for creating that more beautiful free world that you had a glimpse of in your Awakening, mystical, psychedelic and flow experiences.
He does this by helping you discover your Greatest Gift (your Unique Super Power) and Deepest Why that had been created out of your Greatest Longing. Your Greatest Longing that had been born and grown out of your Greatest Struggle the way diamonds and pearls are created.
He then helps you embody your Remarkable Legacy in communion with exactly and only the people with whom you can create the optimum collaboration. Out of this service to the exact people whom you were born to serve, you experience the Deepest Spacious Fulfilling Intimacy with yourself, others and the world.
For a Laser-Coaching session to help you resolve the Patience/Urgency Paradox, Click here.
