I don't talk about my wife a lot here or online generally, because... she likes her privacy and probably wouldn't be crazy about it, I suppose, but... recently I needed her take on something.
I watch the world and its various comings and goings via a wide variety of media and I do so because I realize that using any one of them exclusively will give you a skewed sense of reality. I like to check out a number of print/online outlets, maybe a bit of cable news and sometimes, because of the immediacy and wide range of perspectives, Twitter. That last one... can really get me into trouble. The world is a mess right now in many ways and it's headed for a crash of some kind, both here in the US, and internationally at large. Knowing that is not a great sensation and it often feels like we're all passengers on the Titanic - except we know what's coming and are powerless to stop it. As a citizen, all I have is the the vote, and it can only be exercised periodically, so... there's very little most of us can do to change things. The problems are too large, the institutions long having quit on living up to their responsibilities and an angry mob that will not go away unless by cataclysm awaits in the wings. Twitter may magnify just how bad it is... but it IS that bad. The bottom line is I find it rather nerve-wracking - how do you keep all of the issues, and their possible repercussions, from driving you nuts and ruining your productivity? It's hard, right? Then I though about my wife.
My wife is a top executive at a fortune 500 company of which we've all heard and probably made use of at some point. An antitrust lawyer by training, these days she manages a team of attorneys in the international regulatory environment. Her hours are generally 6 AM to 7 or 8 PM, plus additional work on weekends. When Covid hit, we beefed up her home office and on a few days weekly she'll be in there and I can hear her at least to a degree. She's on one call after another often for the entire day. The nature of the work frequently involves negotiations with representatives of foreign governments as well as our own regulatory agencies. These are frequently high stakes affairs and while the discussions are not necessarily heated they are extraordinarily frank - that's probably the best way to put it. There's a lot riding on these negotiations and the stress factor for all involved is high. But that's the gig! Sometimes things don't resolve themselves within the allotted time and the call comes to a close and then... a minute later... the next call starts... and she can't carry over whatever she was feeling from the last meeting into the next meeting. That would be unprofessional... It also sounds impossible. She does it as a matter of course. I finally had to ask her... "How the hell do you do that?" I mean, I'm getting depressed by Twitter, whereas she's dealing with real stuff... and just bounces back and gets ready to hit the next one out of the park. My question had a second part, "When you don't resolve something and all sorts of bad outcomes are now potentially in the offing... how do you not let that effect you???"
Her answer was, "You can't over-rotate...". What she meant was, and she took pains to explain it, was that you can only deal with what's in front of you at any given point of time and that you need to focus - and focus totally - on that. You can have a sense of what's coming and even be fearful about bad outcomes, but... it does you no good to dwell there or to work out all of those potential scenarios. Oh, you know they're real, but... they also may never come to fruition. You can't live as if the potential calamity has already happened... because it hasn't. To do so... is to over-rotate. Frankly, her take calmed me down somewhat and I thought that, quite frankly, it's damn good advice. It essentially says to stay in the moment, and... that's something we all should do more easily. It doesn't mean stick your head in the sand - it means do what you can and retain a sense of balance so that you're most effective, for yourself and for the world in general.