Emptiness
A page is half-filled – Fill it up with more content
A room has space – Fill it up with some furniture
Calendar is open – Fill it up with some meeting
It seems like emptiness is something miserable to bear. However, in Buddhism, nothingness or emptiness signifies all things are impermanent and interconnected. It is emptiness that has the potential for something beautiful to emerge. We are so used to clutter that it is difficult to create empty spaces but it is still worth it.
“It is precisely those blank areas on the paper that are the most difficult to produce.” – Ike no Taiga, Japanese Painter
Closing ritual
Recently, in back-to-back meetings, I observed that my emotions from previous discussions spilled over to the next one. There was an incomplete residual thought or feeling from the previous meeting which I was carrying over to the next. We all hustle around with many things to attend to, yet we rarely pay attention to closure while transitioning from one area to the next. I was trying to fight myself very hard and I failed. All I needed was a simple closing ritual that would help me in the transition. I created a quick symbolic one by asking myself – “what am I willing to let go now?”, writing down my answer, and turning over a new page for the next meeting.
What can be your closing ritual?
“Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American Poet
Granny’s rule
As a child, we were told to eat our carrots first and then have desserts. This worked like magic to make us do the difficult task first. This behavior change principle is known as Granny’s Rule which is doing the unpleasant task first and then rewarding with the pleasant task. However, it does not always work if we ignore the context. It is easy to implement the principle when both the task and the rewards share the same context. Having the carrot and the dessert had the same context as meal time. Context matters a lot when working on behavior change.
“‘Granny’s Rule’ provides another example of reward superpower, so extreme in its effects that it must be mentioned here. You can successfully manipulate your own behavior with this rule, even if you are using as rewards items that you already possess!” – Charlie Munger, The Psychology of Human Misjudgment