In my most recent book, The Imp and the Angel – The Two Personal Advisors Who Guide Our Lives, I wrote about one of the things that has fascinated me throughout my corporate career in transportation and logistics: the opportunity to learn so much about different industries.
In order to have a qualified opinion about how to transport a product, you need extensive knowledge about the products in question, how to stack and store them, how to withstand high or very low temperatures, how to pack them, and how to withstand shocks. Moreover, you need to know about the nature of the good: is it dangerous or not, does it need special transportation conditions? It is one thing to transport long metal pipes and another to transport cement bags. It is one thing to transport foodstuffs and another to transport flammable chemicals.
It has always fascinated me to learn and get to know my clients’ industries. Fortunately, customers speak with great enthusiasm about their industry, how it is made, the nature of the goods and even how they are transported.
I remember I was at one of the big glass factories in Romania and we were discussing a consignment to be exported to northern Europe. Obviously, such a consignment needed special stowage to be transported safely to its destination.
I was able to offer customers either rail or road transportation. Although the rail option was substantially cheaper, the customer insisted that the goods be transported by truck. It was a detail that escaped me, so I asked why he insisted on road transportation. It was explained to me that although the special stelae protect the glazing packs very well from shocks, they are sensitive to micro-shocks. Trucks rock and rattle, but the tires manage to limit the impact. Trains, however, have those micro-shocks, hundreds or even thousands of them, which add up to put more stress on the glass material and cause them to shatter faster.
So it’s not the big, rare shocks that are dangerous, it’s the small, repeated shocks.
So is our body. This magnificent body has extraordinary resilience. It withstands all kinds of shocks we subject it to. It withstands a sleepless night with a lot of alcohol and will recover in about 24 hours. It withstands the shock of a flu and will recover in seven days. Withstand the shock of a big setback, be it a loss of a job, an income, or a relationship. It’ll take longer, but she’ll bounce back. Guaranteed.
What he doesn’t like, however, are those micro-shocks, such as a consistency in alcohol consumption that can lead to addiction. Or frequent illness, perhaps due to a weakened immune system. Or even daily upsets, which we often induce ourselves and gradually lead to depression. All of these repeated micro-shocks will have the same effect as when you’re carrying glass: they will create those mini-cracks, micro-settings, that you don’t notice but that accumulate every day, and by the time you do notice them it’s too late to give the body a chance to adjust and recover.
It is imperative that we learn to listen to our bodies more carefully. Analyze yourself carefully every day and pay attention to these micro-shocks.
You may be wondering: Okay, okay, once identified, what do I do with them?
You eliminate them. You treat them with detachment.
Seneca preached an excellent stoic principle: seeing from above. Imagine yourself high above the earth, in space, looking down on things from up there. Remember at that moment how small your troubles are, on a universal scale.
Put your troubles aside. The only person you’re physically hurting is yourself.
Focus only and only on feeling good!
This is my opinion. What do you think?
Claudiu
