In a recent conversation with a prominent leader of the global finance industry in New York City, I came across a new phrase : strategic pause. She told me that most of the finance industry (Venture Capital, Private Equity, Hedge Funds etc) have a lot of investible money with them but are not deploying much in fresh investments. She said that the industry is in a strategic pause
I observed that it is an interesting phrase (give it to the Finance industry to always find the best jargon!), but what she was referring to as strategic pause had nothing “strategic” about it. It was simply the paralysis that comes out of abject confusion & the inability to make any sense out of the enormous changes happening in the world around them
She agreed with me, but only after a self-reflective pause :)
If the brightest minds of the global financial industry cannot make sense out of the rapid & enormous technological, social, geopolitcal, ideological and other changes happening now, how can any one of us be expected to be in a better place? We are not; most of us are quite confused by (& not a little fearful of) the extraordinary change happening in the world today
So, how do we navigate this new world of unrelenting & thoroughly daunting change?
In the past, when change was gradual and not so blindingly fast or so simultaneously multifaceted, human beings had two tricks to navigate change:
- Education: a good education, especially higher education, allowed us to have all the information & skills needed to navigate the various gradual changes that we could expect in our lifetime
- Anticipating change : there were many experts in different aspects of life who predicted the likely course of the future & helped us to anticipate what we might need to professionally & personally to navigate the future
Unfortunately, the extreme rapidity of change as well the simultaneous change across so many areas makes both these devices that served us so well over the last 300 years, obsolete
A new way is needed
The case for this new way becomes even more clear when we realise that the extent of the change we experience now is likely to become exponentially higher as every few years go by. We have no option but to quickly find a new way
That was the bad news
The good news is that this “new way” has been available to mankind for the past 5000+ years but we have not bothered to pay it close attention (maybe because we did not need it as acutely as we do now)
The new way to help us navigate all of this extraordinary incoming change is not to look outside us, but to build up our own selves to have the capacity to effectively navigate whatever change comes up
Given that mankind will not be able to anticipate or even imagine all of the coming change, each one of us will have to become an expert surfer of the crashing waves of change, every subsequent & fast-rising wave being almost entirely different from the previous one
To become this expert surfer of unimagined change, the only path we can take (& it is an incredibly powerful path) is to build our own capacity to live a deeply centred and aligned life that allows us to balance lightly and expertly on every unanticipated wave of change with both enthusiasm & calm
Ancient Indian (Indic) knowledge gives us a simple and clear path to building our own capacity for leading such a deeply centred and aligned life. A life of effortless & playful joy - a life of Leela
This path has the following steps:
step 1: understand your innate qualities (as distinct from qualities we acquired during the process of life)
step 2: compare these innate qualities to the current circumstances of life & identify where these qualities are not flourishing
step 3: evaluate what new aspects can be integrated into life-routines in order to ensure that all these innate qualities flourish
step 4: implement those new life-routines into day-to-day life
Thus, Indic Wellbeing Knowledge offers an intensely practical path to aligning & centering one’s life
The greatest benefit of leading such a life is the ability to navigate all changes happening around us from a place of certainty; a place of knowing exactly what one is & what one truly needs in life
