News from Mr Grady
Hello Everyone,
The other evening, in search of something relatively mindless to distract me I ended up watching one of the Mission Impossible films. Don’t ask which, they tend to blur into one. I was particularly entertained that the last 45 minutes of the film happened as a countdown timer ticked away, at the end of which, we were to believe something unpleasant would happen, and it was for Ethan Hunt and his team to stop the timer. The timer was set for 15 minutes, and it took the film 45 minutes to tell the story of what happened in those 15 minutes, before, inevitably at the very last second Ethan and his team saved the day.
The rising sense of panic, as Ethan Hunt dangled from a helicopter, then a mountainside, amidst falling rock, bits of helicopter and gentleman who seemed intent on wrestling him off the mountain, was palpable, and that sense of “in this time of crisis I need to work at full capacity” was certainly reinforced by regular shots of the countdown timer as it worked its way towards zero.
I don’t know about you, but that sense of “working harder in a crisis” is quite hard to shift – that sense of “if I work really hard now, at absolutely full capacity, I might be able to establish some control, some sense of order.” But we have to remember that unlike Ethan Hunt, there is no countdown timer for us, giving us only minutes to resolve the issue, and that working at full capacity is only something we can do for short bursts, and in response to an immediately challenging situation. After the flurry at the start of term and response to an immediate challenge, it is sometimes hard to take your foot of the accelerator just a little and take some time to reflect. It is easy to imagine our own countdown timer ticking away, and to accidentally get caught up in the “rush to save the day.”
I find that sometimes, in the rush to “resolve” and to “keep working” that the energy I have at the keyboard and in the office spills out into even simple things such as feeding the cat: openthecanputitinbowlpatthecatmoveon
or cooking dinner: turntheovenonchopthevegetablesonionscarrotsbeeanswarmtheplatesopenthericewashthe knifedrytheknifeputtheknifeawaylaythetable
As if, somewhere secretly that countdown timer is still working down to zero and I have until the last second to do all these things.
If you find yourself doing this, it’s ok to take a step back – Yes we might have deadlines to meet, and yes, some might be a bit tight, but don’t let the energy of one challenge feed into the next and the next. We might feel like we’re dangling off the side of a mountain but the timer isn’t seconds away from zero – we do have time to take a breath, refocus and reassess.
And hopefully, with that pause for thought, our mission, should we choose to accept it, might feel just a little more possible than it did 5 minutes ago.
Stay well and safe everyone,
With very best wishes,
Mr Grady
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