the brain-body connection: flat tired

The alarm clock rings or buzzes. It could scream for all that matter, as the last thing you want to do is heed its call. Is it because of a lack of sleep or the insurmountable day that promises to stare right back as soon as you confront it?

You’re in a meeting or have gone to give a presentation or are taking a test or have an upcoming interview... or an entire rowboat of possible ors. It’s just not happening. Your energy level is low. You feel ambivalent. You’re just plain flat. Is it because you’re tired, or does it betray a lack of excitement for the task at hand?

The brain-body connection is at once remarkably complex and patently simple. You’re about to play a double-header on the last day of a long season, but you get to the stadium two hours early to take extra batting practice because you want to hone your swing in advance of the playoffs. You’re about to give a concert after a long day of travel, but your technique isn’t just where you’d like to see it. So you go right to the performing-arts center to get in an extra hour of practice beforehand. One of your patients comes in for emergency surgery, but this comes right after a grueling six-hour operation during which, while successful, you dropped five pounds on the effort. You’ve come home after a 14-hour day at work and would gladly sign over your house for a good night’s sleep. Yet your son needs help with his homework and you do so selflessly. The celebrated neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks, who recently learned that he has terminal cancer, offers a fascinating perspective in seeking to live the "richest, deepest, most productive way I can."

These examples and countless others speak of loving what you do, whether as a parent or professional. The stimulation of that kind of passion enables you to perform in ways the body would otherwise categorically refuse.

Feeling flat? Terribly tired? Do what you love, then take advantage of energy reserves that surely shine.

a lack of transparency: stained glass

Why is transparency within the realm of all types of communication—friend-friend, parent-child, husband-wife, manager-employee—so consistently elusive? Why must the ego so quickly approach the greasy fast-fed drive-thru that values expediency and quick profit over healthy dialogue? Why do so many start with perfection as the baseline, from which there is no room to breathe?

Imagine almost any type of scenario. You’ve borrowed a friend’s or parent’s car and have had an accident that was your fault; does the car’s owner not far more appreciate an immediate admission and pledge to do whatever it takes to right the situation, rather than an elusive answer and possible insurance or courtroom fight? You’ve missed a Friday deadline at work to the detriment of a client relationship; does the client not far more appreciate an immediate call and pledge to work through the entire weekend to right the situation, rather than an elusive excuse and possible contractual fight?

Elusive/fight? Transparency permits the kind of freedom and relationship growth not possible by any other means. Genius-level intelligence, fierce discipline and sky-high aspiration can no more reach perfection than those who live under the clouds. Must looking good from every angle trump (as it were…) clear and direct communication?

All of us are ultimately accountable, so why not settle the mistakes when they happen rather than let progressively harmful circumstances eat away at the conscience? In just one of countless events to which this question could be applied, would Baltimore as a whole have been nearly so outraged if its citizens fully trusted that the local authorities were being transparent at all times after Freddie Gray died this past April, critically injured while in police custody? Yes, the U.S. Justice Department stepped in to investigate whether police disregarded Gray’s civil rights, and the local police pledged transparency. But with mistrust more abundant than smog over Beijing, built up over years of deception and bigotry, many generations will have to live and die before seeing lasting progress.

Stained glass—as intricately constructed as a corporate or political cover-up and equally difficult to see through—may appear indelibly beautiful to the eye, yet relationships and communications viewed through Museum Glass, with inevitable flaws and imperfections unable to be hidden, can be far more durable.

Embrace transparency, and leave the thousand-year-old guile of stained glass to the craftsmen, not the crafty.