Feeling Out-of-sync - The Pursuit For Harmony

There is a certain flow that can be obtained for select moments in life where everything moves together. It’s a peerless time when the weather perfectly reflects your mood, when the beat playing through your headphones intimately commentates on your stride and when your immediate audience of passers-by notice the external ora of your elevated spirit and smile toward you.

During this time, everything feels like solid ground. You build momentum. You complete tasks at a rate that previously seemed near impossible. This powerful flow gives you the ability to have confidence that everything is and will continue to work out. You are truly: in sync. Legendary samurai warrior Miyamoto Musashi alluded to this state as the ‘harmony with the Universe and self‘.

But for the past two weeks, I admit I have felt somewhat out of sync. I’ve struggled to build momentum, my task completion rate is varied and nothing feels like solid ground. I have been moving from moment to moment somewhat vigilantly, with the occasionally overpowering feeling of misalignment. I’ve not been overly sad or down, but previously subconscious, creative connections started to transpire less often and what always felt natural no longer did.

Luckily, this feeling of being out-of-sync is fleeting.

But then again, so is the feeling of being in-sync.

As I currently find myself writing this short thought with ease, I realise the ‘In-sync’ flow is a train that can choose to stop at your station; but there is no precise timetable and you cannot always rely on its arrival. Due to the nature of the feeling of being ‘In-sync’, you are not always going to be aware of when you are actually in the state itself. More often than not, you’re going to find yourself out-of-sync, because the opposite state favours you to prioritise your work and more lasting pleasures than your immediate feeling. And so, in these moments when the train has not rushed into your station what is a recommended solution?

Walk. Take a bike. Drive.

Do what is necessary to move forward. You cannot rely on a feeling that is not guaranteed in order to progress in your life’s mission. For the nature of a life’s mission, is that you only have your one life to work on it. As Elon Musk once famously uttered, ‘when something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favour.’

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