Mind, on the rocks?!

In the current climate of the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic, in case someone is reading in the future, I’ve been reading a lot of articles on the observations and emotions that people are experiencing. People like you and me are struggling to balance all the different facets of our lives suddenly colliding in this new reality. People feel torn between elements that are normally very much removed from each-other by time and location. I will honestly admit that my life has become a smoothie maker of all of my responsibilities, and guilt doesn’t taste great.

I preserve myself by treating everything like an contractual agreement. If you are in the same general space where I am, you might be struggling with some serious guilt. I decided to do something a couple of years back and it’s worked for me ever since. I treat myself like a business and I treat my relationships like contracts. Just for a moment think of yourself as private limited company, your very own business. “Hi I’m Werner Pty(ltd) est 1984.” I decided to look at myself as a business that enters into agreements with other businesses, real companies or other people it makes no difference. You see we all have so much experience with contractual agreements, clauses, liabilities and risks we can just as well use that experience to help us navigate life. I know it sounds very cold but I assure you it’s quite the opposite, compassion is a huge part of doing good business in my world, hopefully it is in yours as well.

All relationships are equal but some are more equal than others, you need to eat!

Personal relationships are just agreements of a social nature. We enter into agreements with people all the time, your chosen friends, life partners, family (you are born into that agreement tough luck) and people you meet day to day. Regardless of stature or duration we are investing time and energy into these agreements for some type of return. For example, My wife is her own business and we decided to partner up to create a “Family Business” also known as “getting hitched”. In the “family business” we are equal partners in all matters, except for taking out the trash, dealing with dead things and specifically worms, I don’t do spiders but we are equal everywhere else. The driver for continued investment and servicing of this agreement is simple, it hits those bottom three sections of the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs like a sledge hammer.

I have this same mind set with my employers, who are real businesses. The rules stay the same. We agree on what is and is not acceptable and expected, how we will exchange services and remuneration, both financial, and emotional. The relationship evolves over time and the conditions of the agreement changes but the agreement stays in place until it is terminated. The same thing happens in personal relationships. It doesn’t matter if it’s a friend or a family member there are expectations and conditions to the engagement and termination is a very real possibility. You can quit family, it’s not always advisable, but it can be done.

Never get into an agreement that you can’t service, that is bad business.

As a business I have a specific set of skills that I render to service my contracts. I also have a specific amount of energy and time that I can use to render these services. Some services I render in exchange for money, other times I render service because it feels good, sometimes it sucks but hey it helps out another human and that is good too. Social investment is just as important as financial investment, more so when it’s in yourself. The important thing is to start thinking about your time and energy as capital in your business and your skills as services. You are a single proprietor business in all facets of your life, you have a responsibility to ensure you are doing good business.

Why is it helpful to treat relationships like business agreements? Because we all understand what contracts are, we understand their gravity and we treat them with cautious optimism. If we were to approach a relationship of any nature with the same mentality we would instinctively treat it with a higher degree of reverence, something that I think is sorely missing in these days of disposable friends and quick fixes. We would probably also make better decisions and defend your rights under the agreement more fiercely. At this time of extreme stress and fatigue our “businesses” are suffering, we are suffering and as a result our contracts are suffering. How can we deliver a top quality services if our businesses are so strained? Some of us can barely tell what day it is, let alone focus on the deliverables of an agreement. We have to admit to ourselves that many of us are in trouble and we have to choose to start investing in ourselves now.

Investing in yourself is important, even more so when others depend on you, that is just good business.

You need to be a solid business in order to fulfill your obligations. If you want to render solid service you have to take care of yourself mentally and physically. If you have multiple social agreements, just like any business, you have to be able to distinguish between critical , flexible, and bad business. This means as business we have to start rating and ranking all our agreements. Yes that’s right, just like any other business under strain you have to make hard decisions as to where you will be investing your limited energy and time. Energy and time is a finite resource, right now we are all mentally under stress, subconsciously we are all wondering what happens next. This added dimension of subconscious debate means our “output” is lower than usual and that adds more strain on us.

Accounting is key, knowing how much you have to spend and where you can spend it. This means that we have to keep track of our spending and if we have reached the extent of our spend, we have to stop. Some agreements will be serviced and some will not, this is just the reality of preservation. As far as agreements go if it adds no value to your life, if it does not help build your business, it’s bad business, walk away. You might find that if you implement stringent “emotional austerity measures”, at least for a while, you will see that you have more to spend and then by all means spend it. Steve down at the pub misses you, give him a call but for goodness sake don’t leave your house.

We are a community of businesses, we have to be stable before we can invest in others.

We are all businesses and we need to invest in ourselves so that we can invest in others. You may very well be on the receiving end of “emotional austerity measures”, accept it for what it is, give people the space and time they need to get their business in order. We all have to strategically determine how we can service our agreements best. This means above all else we need to save energy and time to have to ourselves, to better our businesses, so that we can help others with their business when they need it most.

I am by no means advocating for just cutting people off and becoming a recluse. However taking stock of what is and what isn’t important is going to make a huge difference now. If you are still in the fortunate position to be working and receiving a salary, invest in keeping that income going. Taking a break from taxing relationships and elements that don’t add value to us is going to help all of our businesses to survive. Also if you have a pet, please remember that they have some expectations from you as well, make sure they get some attention and in return you will get unconditional love…unless you have a cat, I can’t help you there.

Be present as much as possible, be patient with those around you, be honest with yourself and your friends. Stay home. Stay safe.