Two feet on the ground.
I’ve been based back in Europe for exactly 6 weeks now and wow how time has evaporated. This has been my first weekend at home in Bückeburg, the town I’m based in, which follows 5 back-to-back weekends in different countries or continents.
My final weekend in Cape Town was also packed with work, which followed ‘moving back to Germany’, dropping my things before heading straight to São Paulo in Brazil for Formula E. Back to Germany for the first round of the German Rally Championship, followed by a weekend in the UK for my best friend’s wedding, followed by the official pre-season DTM Test at the Redbull Ring in Austria, followed by the double-header Formula E rounds & rookie test in Berlin last weekend. It’s been a great ride so far but it’s also been a lot!
I have two thoughts I want to pin down in this piece as I reflect on the warmup-lap of life that has just been and the full-throttle race that’s still coming.
How to stay grounded.
To preface this, trying to stay grounded is a constant process of learning. Emphasis on trying. I’m far from figuring it out and even further away from being able to write some comprehensive guide, but I’ve found a couple of practices that are helping. Various dictionary definitions of the word suggest a grounded person is someone who is “mentally and emotionally stable”, who “remains admirably sensible, realistic, and unpretentious despite all the praise and attention”, and perhaps someone who can “understand the importance of ordinary things in life”.
Last year this adventure in Europe felt a lot more like that, an adventure. An unknown, undetermined quantity of new, unfamiliar, and highly exciting experiences many of which I had dreamt about as a kid. I got swept up in its high-octane nature, diving into my surroundings and immersing myself in the different culture and way of doing things, that sometimes did cause me to lose myself in the lifestyle, by which I mean not hold steadily on to my values and beliefs from home.
Now there’s something to be said for being open to living life differently. After all, despite cultural difference across the globe, people everywhere are still people and have a shared underlying nature. One way is not more right than another, in fact there isn’t even a scale of right and wrong, it’s just different. But you can as an outsider entering in decide whether some are differences you like and take on for yourself, or just differences you respect and perhaps at times disapprove of, but live alongside rather than embody.
For me running, piano, and morning meditation & prayer have been 3 things that have helped me slow down, take stock, and realign my gaze. They’re incredible medicines or antidotes to an otherwise frantic life that moves faster than I can think. When I’m sitting at the piano my mind can do nothing but focus on the music, the notes to play and sometimes the words to sing. It completely calms my body, and now having a keyboard designed to travel with, I know I will have this tool with me almost everywhere I go.
Running is something I really don’t like doing. At all. Running as a means to an end is fine, that’s why I loved hockey or tennis so much. But running as an end in itself is one of my least favourite things ever. But it’s currently the only way I can do regular, intense exercise. Last year in 6 months I put on 12kg by eating a lot more and doing a lot less exercise. I was caught in a bad cycle of race-track food, late nights at my laptop, and comfort-numbing my way through sweets and chocolates. But discipline is something I have thrived off in the past, so now I’m running at least 4 times a week. And it’s been good space for me to think, and get fresh air.
And spending time meditating on a poem or scripture or piece of writing or prayer allows me to focus on where my energy and drive to do life every day comes from. Without this it's all pointless and meaningless.
Practicing presence.
It’s hard to appreciate a moment as it’s happening when the moments are flying through one after the next. With a full schedule, looking ahead at what is next is very tempting and easy, trying to stay on top of planning and preparations for some future event requires much less of our emotional and mental energy than being in the present moment does, dealing with the highs and lows as they’re happening. The grass is green here and now, even if it might be green in the future too. It might be greener in the future but it might also not. Right now is all the green you’re going to get, and that future green will only be experienced in the present when it does arrive.
Taking stock of what is happening for you, and being able to extract the meaning and the life from that experience is really where it’s at. From everyday moments in conversations with people, while cooking, while cleaning, while reading a book, while writing an email or making a business call. There is life to be had and enjoyed in those kinds of moments as well as the big, loud, shouty, ones we get excited for. Not always of course, but a lot more than we, and especially I, might think.
I’ll see how I get on. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. But that’s okay.
