The Middle Way
The Buddha taught the pathway of moderation—the Middle Way—neither attraction or aversion, neither excessiveness nor scarcity.
Does the Buddha’s teaching have a place in a culture obsessed with “attracting” abundance? Those open and willing can benefit from the Middle Way.
Think of a current project: writing a book, painting a portrait, or creating a new home office. You start out excited about the project. With oodles of enthusiasm, the project dominates your thoughts, keeps you up at night, and becomes the ongoing topic of conversation.
But, at some point, you hit an obstacle—we all do. Something stops your momentum, sucking the life out of the project. Apathy sets in, leading to procrastination.
Now, visualize a continuum with apathy at the far left of the line and excitement at the far right. What would represent the Middle Way?
Steadiness works (but you may find other concepts that work, too).
With steadiness, we can move through the steps of a project with Zen-like effortlessness, without resistance—succumbing to neither attraction nor aversion.
The tortoise’s wisdom is once again illuminated: slow and steady will the race be won. While the hare (the ego) is jumping around, needlessly expending energy, the wise tortoise takes one step at a time, honoring each step in the process.
The Middle Way isn’t sexy; you won’t see it profiled on a late night infomercial. The Middle Way is discovered with wisdom and maturity. This path is aligned with a different way of being, one that brings a sense of peace—and productivity and results too.
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Awesome post! I “ReTweeted” and “Facebooked” it.
Very interesting – I was just talking to my buddy Dan about this very subject last week, and had notes to create my own video/post about the very same subject. I’ll be sure to reference this post.
“Excitement” is not sustainable long-term. It’s not a natural state. It tends to run biochemically on adrenaline, which is not a state of physiology that is healthy to use for sustainable effort. It’s great for short sprints, but not for an endurance event.
Success in business, and in life, is a long-term, long-haul situation. You don’t want to be using the kind of resources it’s going to take to try to “excite” your way through a project.
Scott has written elsewhere on this blog/site about the importance of sizing up a project before getting started, and planning accordingly. This morning, while evaluating a potential business opportunity, I realized that I have been involved in nine startups in the past 18 years (three “brick and mortar” businesses, three “online” businesses, and three bands).
While excitement might be great initially, it’s like gasoline on a fire. It burns up quickly when the work of keeping the fire going sets in. Those medium and big sized logs you have strategically placed while setting up and building the fire BEFORE you light it are what’s going to provide long-term sustainability.
Very well said, Andrew. Excitement does seem associated with adrenaline, which is not sustainable.
Also, we don’t need to squash our excitement and enthusiasm. We just need the wisdom to know that the energy of excitement and enthusiasm is fleeting, so we can clear evaluate the potential future of a particular project.