As far as I can remember, I have almost always felt pressure while studying, playing, coding, everything. Whether it is an external factor or internal, the pressure is always there. But there have also been a few handful instances when I have not felt the pressure and truly just got involved in the process of doing. These handful times are the ones I have been my best.
It’s surprising I’m realizing this only now in spite of having quoted a famous verse from Gita, that loosely translates to “do your karma without any attachment to the expected results”, multiple times in conversations and writings. I’m sure it’s not the first time I’m seeing this pattern in my behaviour. This morning, however, it was the first thought I woke up with.
As a student, I would expect to get good score in school/college and get upset when I didn’t achieve the desired result. While playing any sport/game, I’ve always wanted to win instead of enjoying the game or learning from losses. At work, I do things with an attitude of perfection in spite of knowing that “done is better than perfect”. It’s the same with writing on this blog — I fear being mocked (something I have faced at the hands of my once closest school friends for asking something naive on a Q&A forum) for it, or looking like an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s writing about; and hence a lot of what comes to my head stays there or gets forgotten like those dark memory orbs in the movie Inside Out.
The problem is that in spite of knowing the “how”, I can’t implement it in my day-to-day life. I might become a good mentor, but not a good achiever myself. It’s what they call the difference between knowledge and wisdom. I have the former, not the latter.
Well, let’s give it one more shot. I’ll try to remember those handful pleasurable times when I did stuff without the pressure of result, but instead to learn something and ended up enjoying it so much that results didn’t matter. At least they didn’t matter to the point of occupying my head 100% of the time.