breath – From the desk of Adam Thomas

They say pressure makes diamonds

You need pressure in your life. The right amount of force can transform someone from going along to getting along.

I love that pressure creates diamonds because some of our greatest victories come from when the walls are closing in, and we are forced to rise above our troubles.

With that in mind, we also have to remember that pressure can burst pipes. Sometimes you don’t “rise” and have to deal with the consequences, usually in the form of burnout. That can take months or years to recover.

Personally, I rather not deal with that.

One concept I appreciate from engineering is a release valve. It functions as a warning that something, whatever it is, is building up and you should pay attention.

In life, I think we need these. Create a release valve for those pressures.

Add some silence in your day or do like my parents and call each other. Add something to look forward to on your calendar.

The warning might save you from burnout.

Don’t force the unenforceable

I am a big fan of Kung Fu movies.

One of the major relationships in kung fu movies is the connection between student and teacher. My favorite part of that relationship is the training montage.

The training montage is where the young and rambunctious student learns all the cool moves you see the master do in the beginning. After a few minutes, the student becomes a fighting machine.

There is always one part of the montage that bothered me. The movie shows the student in “perfect meditation.” Nothing bothers him. After running a few miles, every vice that got to him before his training is now ineffective.

He somehow mastered his urges. He has turned into a robot. A high-flying Kung Fu robot.

The reason it didn’t sit well with me is that when I try to fight my urges, I never become a high-flying kung-fu robot. I don’t even become a low flying kung-fu robot.

I just lose.

After a few days of me resisting, the urge comes back and does so with a vengeance.

You can’t destroy energy. That is the first law of thermodynamics. By resisting the urge, you are loading the urge into a slingshot to hit you square in the face.

What can you do? Well, I’ll tell you tomorrow.

Before then, if you never watched Drunken Master, do yourself a favor, and catch it where you can.