“funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’ for a little while”

The line comes from a song written by Gary Nicholson and brought to life by Jeff Bridges and Colin Farrell in the wonderful movie, Crazy Heart – also featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal (swoon) and the recently deceased Robert Duvall.

Bridges deservedly pulled an Oscar for Best Actor, playing the role of Otis ‘Bad’ Blake, an alcoholic singer-songwriter whose best days might well be behind him until he meets a young journalist played by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

As in life things go from great, to bad to worse, to great again – on a loop, just like life.

A great movie, irrespective of your musical tastes – Bridges is superb and is well supported by Colin Farrell.

There is a powerful lesson in there too – that redemption is possible at any stage of your life but only through accountability, humility and self-acceptance.

I was reminded of the line from the movie, listening to a short lecture by Alan Watts – killing time in a coffee shop this morning.

“Walking is falling,” he said.

In the context of life and our movement forward – the act of actual walking is controlled falling.

Lean, fall, catch. Lean, fall, catch. Over and over.

Watch a child making the first attempts to walk you ask the question, is the child falling or learning?

Watt talks about the difficulty for us talking the next step in life is that we are so afraid of falling – just like the child but after a while the child becomes so adept at ‘controlled falling’ that the process becomes second nature.

Soon, walking becomes running.

Fearlessly.

And yet at some point in life that changes – we forget to move fearlessly forward, becoming trapped in the insecurity of “what if”

Alan Watts said a lot of things – plenty that takes a second and third reading to understand and absorb.

I’m not kidding anyone by quoting him on these pages – whatever I might earn from him is as easily forgotten or never applied, safe in the knowledge that I am well out of my depth.

But I’m learning – if only for a little while.

Central to his philosophy, is the idea that life is impermeant and unpredictable.

Everything changes.

Sin é.

That job.

That relationship that could have been something.

That friendship from childhood.

Your worldview.

The rain.

The heatwave.

He also said that our constant quest for security amplifies the overall sense of insecurity we experience.

The more you try and hold on to things and the more you resist change, the more stressful your life becomes.

The more you look for certainty the more you realise how little control you have – that everything is under threat.

Don’t we all crave certainty about our future?

Truth is, EVERYTHING is uncertain and the sooner we can come to terms with that the better.

Not a great thought for first thing on a Monday morning but eventually this idea reduces itself to a more optimistic place of embracing the uncertainty and accepting the law of impermanence – living in the present moment and keeping moving.

Keep going with the simple process of controlled falling.

Lean, fall, catch. Lean, fall, catch.

(***Disclaimer – I reflect on my own behaviour as I write this and acknowledge those things that have caused me to loose sleep at night. The stuff within my control and the stuff that sits outside of it. How my thinking can oscillate from hero to persecutor in the blink of an eye. By writing about the subject I am acknowledging my own weaknesses and empathising with those I can relate to.)

Much of what we do in sales is reflected in life – starting with the fixation on the outcome of our work.

The target.

Closing the sale.

“Are we there yet?” “Are we there yet?” “Are we there yet?” “Are we there yet?”

Fixated on the outcome but not on the process.

The law of impermanence was written for sales – the bad run and the good run of success are both time bound.

They will not last.

Nothing does.

Sweating the results only leads to more stress and makes it harder to move forward or to move at all

All well and good reading (or writing) this. My lived experience tells me that it can be beyond hard.

Anxiety-inducing.

Catastrophising.

Overthinking.

Worry begetting more worry.

Wanting security and a safer outcome only adds to the malaise.

The important thing is to take action and keep moving and make the process (or the journey) the goal.

A movement of any kind adds more value to your position than thinking.

Just like controlled falling.

Thanks for reading.

Photo by Jordan Christian on Unsplash