The other day I was reading the hobbies of several C-level executives. And once again I found the usual suspects: cooking, history, art, classical music, old-timers, wine, golf, walking in the mountains … I’ve always wondered, do they do this because it is just part of the social class they belong to (cf. Bourdieu)? Or do they really enjoy it? And why have these hobbies never changed over the last decades, centuries?
I’ve tried some of them in the past, and just didn’t do anything for me. Even the opposite, I got utterly frustrated from cooking, restless from classical music, couldn’t be bothered about the finesse of different wines (they all tasted good), and got bored looking at old cars. Until I recently hit a physical wall. The combination of a lack of sleep (being a young father with a light sleeping daughter), fast-food, 60 hour weeks, and 4 days of holiday a year suddenly stopped me in my tracks.
The event got me interested in thinking about what brings me to rest? I’ve tried mindfulness in the past and it didn’t work for me the moment I got home. I felt like fool doing these exercises, and got impatient. I never understood why, because in group they seemed to work. Until somebody explained it to me using the Chines yin-yang philosophy.
If you have too much yang energy (active, aggressive, male energy, a lot of impetuosity) which a lot of executives and I have, it doesn’t make sense to suddenly try to do activities that are far on the yin-continuum. Like sitting still on a chair focusing on your breathing. It is like driving 160 on the high-way, and hiding the breaks at full speed. This just creates heat, frustration, is unpleasant. It makes more sense to get to rest (yin) by e.g. movement (yang) in activity that has a lot of yin-energy (female, passive energy): walking in the forest (Steve Jobs was famous to have long walks in the forest surrounding Silicon Valley), playing golf, cooking & tasting wine (delicate flavors and aromas), walking in museum (aesthetics), driving old-timers (aesthetics). Hence, all these typical hobbies c-level people with 24/7 jobs have for centuries.
As my body suddenly forced me rest, it restored to equilibrium after a period of too much yang. From nature I’ve a lot of yang in me. It leads to great things, but to keep it sustainable I’ve learned to balance it with yin-activities. As I’m still recovering from the energy disorder and therefore not too far on the yang dimension, I’m able to enjoy cooking, walking and classical music for the first time in my live. And I’ve to say I feel more balanced than ever.
Any comments?
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Dear Jesse,
Even in harder times, it is always a delight to hear from you. For one, because I never know what you will share with us next, but as usual you have a mind broadening effect with the topic you share. A train of thoughts was triggered reading your story.
I am a mother of a young kind too, so I can relate to those first tough years. But also because it is about Chinese thought. For the people that don’t know me, it is partly my cultural inheritance. Though, as youngest of three, I’m the only one who actually studied the large amount of books on the topic on my mother’s ‘book wall’ and eventually the ancient Chinese Works from the age of 15-16 till now. So that’s now about 30 years. So, a lot of what you wrote, I’m in ways familiar with.
I saw myself in your story. Even with trying out the new things you describe. Let’s face it; the little ones are the most beautiful thing that we are blessed with. But those first five years are also the heaviest. It is only after these first five years that it gets easier. At times, I did not know what hit (us/) me, back then. My young one caught a viral pneumonia at age 1,5, due to the chicken-pox, with a fever running up that could have killed him. Our doctor came in the middle of the night and we used ice to get the fever down. But nothing seemed to help what we did that night. I have never been more scared in my life, than that night. The next day, I spoke my manager, and he got angry for the work I would miss that day. He even yelled. That was my day, that I hit my physical wall and I was stopped in my tracks. I knew I could not go further that way, with this job, with this manager, with my old lifestyle, and that I also would have to make adjustments to rebalance a full time job with home life. So I adjusted my way of life. And did it in ways similar to what you describe.
But there is one thing I wish I knew back then. It is in a way practicing ambidexterity. We have to raise our efficiency in these tough first 5 years, but we also have to innovate at the same time.
The yin yang sign has at each half the beginning of the other half. In the ancient Classics 四书五经 there is one Book that ends in an relatively unusual way. The last two Chapters are 63 ‘After the Ending’, and this one comes before, 64 ‘Before the ending’. It is as if the Book most literally wants to illustrate the Yin Yang sign to us [there are references about this]. If we know what comes after where we are now, we can prepare ourselves for what is to come. Also it functions to see the larger context of where we are now. So it helps us to put thing in perspective. It is precisely the equilibrium it shows us. The point where one phase goes to the next.
These first five years of becoming a new parent are in many ways so unique and beautiful, but they are also exhausting due to for example the broken nights, lack of sleep, the overfull agenda’s, and at times plain chaos (when you are called at work that your child is ill, and you were just about to start the big sales meeting ..). I would have had more peace in my mind if I had thought more of, and practiced the lessons of these last two Chapters. It was precisely at the age of 6 that the balance in our family was back. A new harmony had settled itself. If I had thought more of the phase after the 5 first years, would I even have enjoyed the chaos more? I sometimes wonder now ..
To close off. I interpreted these two Chapters of the ancient Classics 四书五经 in music a few weeks ago. (And, since classical music has now become an option
Listen to what happens if we reverse the order of Tchaikovsky’s Seasons.
The sad piece of ‘October’ of Tchaikovsky’s Seasons, that is in Minor, reminds us of nature preparing itself for the Winter, with plants dying (my interpretation). I think it is the ultimate ‘October’ representation. Listen to what happens if we put ‘December’ and ‘November’ first: https://player.spotify.com/user/zeebries-nl/playlist/101YRcWIXyOLMBxMbTuPAb All of a sudden ‘October’ is bearable, not sounding so gloomy anymore, for we know already what comes after.
Enjoy every single day, of these first 5 years, they only happen once.
1. December: Christmas (A-flat major)
2. November: Troika (E major)
3. October: Autumn Song (D minor)
Best wishes, Yvonne
Dear Yvonne,
thank you for this wisdom.
All the best!
Jesse