One Step At A Time

Hi, welcome back,

I hope you enjoyed your weekend.

Last year around this time, I was on a phone call with my dad. Honestly, whenever I get a chance to talk to my father, I feel delighted and energized. Actually, my father might be reading this, hi dad :-)
In his younger days, my father used to go on adventure trips, and he told me about them in our talks. He described to me when he was in Allahabad (now Prayagraj). He went for a walk along the river and reached the Triveni Sangam. It was early in the morning when he arrived there and apart from his friends no one was there. He decided to take a swim in the holy rivers. He was swimming towards a point where it was becoming dangerous, and he also saw a sign saying the water might be treacherous, don't go any further. You would think that was the sign to turn around and go back, but he decided to carry on anyway. He said that as he continued swimming, he sort of found himself increasingly caught up in thinking. There was a sense of fear. He was thinking to himself, "I am quite young; I have a young family and cares for my life." And he also found himself worrying about the predicament of what if there is a big creature in the water, what if the speed of the stream increases etc. As this sort of thinking started to gain momentum in his mind, his mind became increasingly clouded. Essentially fear and anxiety meant that there was no clarity of thought. He was in the middle of the stream. Going back will take the same effort as going forward (which he wanted to do all along, cross the Sangam by himself). He said that the only way he was able to continue was to focus on taking one arm stroke at a time.

I have tried swimming a couple of times, and it is interesting when you take that into real-life context. In a situation like this, we are still working on the same principle of just being present with the sensation of the body and of each physical moment that there is almost no room to get caught up in negative thinking. We are not denying the thinking, and we are not suppressing the fear but focusing our attention on one thing in this present moment. There simply isn't room for the mind to get lost in the future or lost in the past. And that is what my dad said the only way he could continue was to focus on one step at a time and keep going.

This is a perfect metaphor for so many aspects of life where we find ourselves either caught up in the past or the future. We are so concerned about what could happen, what might happen in the future, that we are almost paralyzed by fear. Alternatively, we just turn around and run the other way. We never actually take the opportunity to see what might happen and what might unfold if we continue on that path. 

The secret to continuing on that path is not being too focused on what might happen in the future; instead, just focus on this moment right now, taking one step at a time. 

PS: And if you are wondering, yes, he crossed the Sangam and the whole river safely.

The above incident was also one factor that I took the risk and dropped out of IIM Kashipur and reattempted CAT for a better B-school. This strategy of taking one step at a time helped me overcome my anxiety of uncertainty this year. I always wanted to go to a top B-school, and I don't regret any of my decisions.

Take Chances. Life is shorter than you think!