Inner Peace

I have come to appreciate the concept of Inner Peace. Several months ago, our Dutch priest used the concept – he wished inner peace on all of us, stating that maybe that was as good as it got as a human being. When I thought about it, I agreed with him. If we can be at peace inside ourselves, we can reach a state of rare contentment. Even if it sounds rather dull compared with becoming CEO or rich or even in love, surely that is a great ambition?

Our favourite CD at home is called Music for Inner Peace by Harry Christophers and the Sixteen. It is a collection of choral music, mainly from the renaissance. Even if you don’t normally listen to such stuff, I recommend it, since the music really does seem to be able to take layers of tension away.

This month I have been fortunate enough to attend two singing workshops, one of Bach and the other of this wonderful earlier music. As holidays, these are a pure joy to me. The second one had an additional feature that every evening we finished the day by singing Compline, an ancient, simple service handed down from monasteries. The effect on many of us was stunning each night, the tensions of the day just flooding out of our bodies with the repetitive meditative chants. These early monks surely had some life lessons right, and most likely people favouring other forms of meditation have achieved similar peace.

At this stage of my life, I feel blessed to have some level of inner peace. When I look back, this has not always been the case. I remember my teenage years as anything but peaceful. I was consumed by a fear of girls and intimacy, and became paralysed by it, unable to find anyone to share this with or an easy way out. This fear led to acne, and more self-loathing, and the whole thing became self-perpetuating. I believe this was far from uncommon among my generation, often mixed in with unclear thoughts about sexuality and sin. One great feature of the last thirty years is that this all-consuming fear seems a lot less common now, as kids have learned to be more open with each other and parents have learned a trick or two as well.

Later in my life I had a long phase of maintaining a secret, unable to admit to anyone that something unhealthy lingered inside my home. This secret gave me shame and fear and frequently dread of certain social situations. The relief that flooded through me as I finally found the courage to admit to this secret and to confront it changed my life, although that same courage had unwelcome side effects as well. My belief is that many lives are blighted by such secrets.

When I tried to draw up a list of all the things that inhibited us from finding inner peace, I surprised myself at how long the list turned out to be. Maybe it is not surprising that one meets so few people who seem to have discovered such peace. Most seem to fall into three categories: the very young, who know no better; those in monastic or similar situations; and people reconciled to dying very shortly. In some ways this is not very encouraging, as for most of us this leaves a long gap between our first days and our very last days, while becoming a monk lacks appeal as well.

Many people have very basic reasons to lack inner peace. It is a tough life when one is frequently cold, or hungry, or in pain, or beaten, or feel responsible to a family where cold or hunger is just around the corner, or when a loved one has recently died prematurely. This remains the majority in some parts of the world, and was the majority everywhere not many generations ago. Luckily, in much of the developed world this is no longer the case, although underemployment lurks just around the corner for many, and it is certainly valid for the youth of today to have fear about where their lifetime of income might come from.

Even if we have a home and a job and a means of feeding ourselves, there are many obstacles to inner peace. Money lies behind some. Debt has become a modern-day curse, and blights so many lives. A recent study has found that wealth and happiness are more closely related than previously established. My belief is that indeed the link is stronger now, and solely because so many people are in debt. It is tough to be happy when fear stalks the arrival of the post or phone calls.

Now run down the following list. I believe I have come across people consumed by all of the emotions below.

There is fear of death itself, and the linked fear of judgement, and the anticipated shame of not having done enough with the life we have been given.

There is shame of our physical appearance and short-comings, especially our weight. There is fear of being able to find sexual partners, of our exposed inadequacies, of humiliation. There is the fear of loneliness, of long years without loving company, and having to deal with the pity of others.

There is anger at not being recognized for our true worth, at our perception of being discriminated against or the lack of a level playing field. This can lead to disdain for a boss or employer. Sometimes, there is some secret self-loathing behind this. Sometimes there is all-consuming anger, envy or jealousy of others who we perceive to have benefited unfairly.

There is guilt and shame and fear of exposure for past misdeeds or present habits. Perhaps we feel a fraud in some important aspect of our life, and can’t face up to it, even to ourselves. This leads us to lie, and every lie adds to the hurt.

Then there are relationships which are broken, left without apology or reconciliation and only leading to pain, resentment, guilt or anger.

The list could go on and on. And these are just some of the chronic ones. Even if we can get past those, not an easy task, we might still be prone to acute outbursts of anger (politicians, other drivers?) or fear (driving a new road, skiing?) or envy (neighbours) or shame (parents) or guilt (parents again). It is no wonder that peace is so elusive.

Religion seems to me to have a mixed track record in this area. A lot of the principles are very helpful. Trusting to a God can help reconcile us to death and to the large things outside our control. Counting our blessings is always a good idea. So can be confession and absolution, if that can expose and detoxify secrets. But many religions also place large expectations on us, setting us up to fail and suffer, and also emphasise judgement. It is surprising how much of Christian Gospels are about judgement. This hardly seems easy to reconcile with inner peace.

Some other programmes seem well-suited, for example twelve step programmes. The whole mantra could be summed up as a manual to find inner peace, and seems relevant to all of us, not just addicts. Key elements are trust in a higher power, confession and reconciliation (with oneself and others). The serenity prayer is marvelous. If we can only find the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference, then inner peace might be just around the corner.

So what am I advocating here? Well, first, I think inner peace is an excellent conscious goal for most of us. It may not sound much fun, but it is tough to realize, and a great foundation for items like love and joy. One good way to assess your peace level may be to observe how well you are sleeping. I have been blessed with great sleep through my life so far, the exception being when I was least at peace.

Next, once we agree to the goal, we have to work at the obstacles one by one, which means facing up to them. Secrets are not generally beneficial, nor are habits of lies. If there is something about ourselves that we hate, we have two good choices: get over it or change it. Suffering it is not a good choice. Things like the serenity prayer can help. Openness to selected others and displaying vulnerability can help too.

Next, we can love and serve others better by helping them find inner peace. That may be hard except in those we are very close to, but for sure we will be stuck in a few broken relationships, including most likely some family members, and we always have the option of apologizing first, even if we are completely sure nothing was our fault. With our life partners and our children and our parents, the scope will be greater.

Next, we can try to simplify our lives. Simpler lives tend to have fewer anxieties. The more we expect of ourselves and others, the more we are sure to be disappointed. Perhaps we cannot all strive to be monks, but all of us can find ways to make our lives simpler and hence more peaceful.

Finally, we can use techniques like prayer, breathing, meditation and even Compline. These don’t replace tough working on root causes, but they can certainly help make the journey easier. 

When to simplify

Simplification is a good thing. I blogged before about simplifying your life, and still believe that is one of the smartest things we can all try to do. Life is complex enough without making it more complex than it needs to be.

We are trying to plot our way through life semi-blind. In some ways technology has made things worse. Before, most news was from close to home, most people we met had similar backgrounds, and most decisions were constrained by practicality. Nowadays we have the opportunity to understand a far richer world and to participate more broadly in it. Without making a few assumptions and using a few guiding principles, we would be paralysed.

Again as I have blogged before, I like the philosophy of Oakeshott. The theory is that we must assume we know next to nothing, enabling us to learn as rapidly as possible and to constantly renew assumptions. Yet we must also make those assumptions, flimsy as they are, and act boldly, yet with adaptability, to do as well as we can. This seems a smart philosophy to me.

When I grew up probability and statistics were for nerds like me, but in the modern world it may have become the most important branch of maths. I hope teachers have responded. Certainly there are some good books around now on the subject, such as The Norm Chronicles by Blastland and Spiegelhalter, which compares life risks using statistics and dispels many myths.

In assessing world affairs, politics and so on, it pays to assume there is more complexity than people make out. Too much simplicity is just duplicitous. Whenever I see a ten second news segment or sound bite opinion, I become wary, unless the source is one I have come to trust deeply. It is just too easy to pigeonhole leaders and whole countries as enemies, and to fall for the soft language of propaganda. Our side are allies, theirs are terrorists. It is always good to challenge such bland statements.

I wish someone would write a good book about the PR industry. I hate PR. At least with advertising, their bias is transparent and we choose whether to be taken in. PR comes with false authority and is more dangerous. Perhaps that is why it has grown so much. And news has become so shortened and popularized that often it is reduced to acceptance of PR.

If I were to write about PR, I think I would focus on statements that should raise red flags. If there is a sob story about one family, farmer or person set to lose out from a proposal, that should make me suspicious. The next line of defence is often to point out inconsistencies in a proposal, followed by a claim that it is hard to understand or hard to implement. Finally come claims that it may be a good proposal, but only if everyone else implements it too, followed closely by a claim that the proposal does not deal with the subject broadly enough so does solve the real problem.

Each of these statements has truth. Each is usually aimed at stopping something that will do more good than harm, put forward by an interest group. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a raspberry went off on our TV set anytime someone said something like that? Come on someone, write the book debunking PR!

In business, I often had strategy jobs, and one dilemma was always how much to simplify. Business situations are generally complex, and always influenced by context. But a strategist who refused to make any generalisations at all would not be comprehended or influential.

This is how the four box model came into being. These are often gross simplifications, but at least the deal with two dimensions at once, can be visualized, and offer a menu of understandable actions that will be right more often than wrong.

I loved coming up with by own models, whether four box ones or otherwise, and I still love to study the models of others. By coincidence, two were reviewed in the Economist this week.

One, How Asia Works, by Studwell, comes up with a simple theory to explain the emergence of Asian economies over the last fifty years. Seemingly, there are three steps. First, get rid of monopoly agriculture and train small-time farmers to make use of smallholdings, second back chosen industries with state support, and third stifle the finance system via capital controls.

I like this theory, since it runs counter to conventional wisdom, seems to fit most facts, and may even be repeatable. The author even accepts that context may make the model less applicable for other nations. The model makes you think and points some good potential directions. Above all, it helps to explain the current success of China, which often defies other gurus. What happens when the three steps necessarily unravel is, of course, another story.

The second book is a business book claiming three rules to explain long-term success. The rules are: better before cheaper; revenue up before cost down; and, wait for it, there is no other rule. I am less convinced by this model, since context is surely everything in this type of trade off. Easyjet has followed neither rule, yet my Easyjet shares have outperformed all my other ones. Raynor and Ahmed will probably point out that Easyjet may not be around in thirty years time, but I will counter that by saying that most short-term decisions, employment and investing decisions do not use that timeframe.

Unlike the one above, business models that I do like often point towards internal consistency. If you follow the philosophy of Raynor and Ahmed, then don’t skimp on branding or R&D. If you are Easyjet, be more pragmatic. My favourite business model book remains The Discipline of Market Leaders, which defined three distinct strategies, operational excellence, product leadership and customer intimacy, and advocated making a clear choice and linking everything in the business to the choice. Apart from failing to point out that in many contexts one choice had much greater success chance than the others, I liked that book very much.

I feel that some of my best work in Shell was in defining internally coherent business models, for example for retail businesses. Then other managers came in and, in my opinion, simplified too much, trying to squeeze everything into one business model regardless of context. Choosing just where and how much to simplify remains a key challenge.

Having made that claim, I also admit to two common pitfalls. First, once I had a model, I found it so beautiful that I did not challenge it hard enough, so much did I want it to succeed. And secondly I often became lured by the challenge of trying to solve the whole problem and failing (intellectually or politically) when I could have made progress by addressing simplified issues.

Going back to politics, often the most successful politicians these days are city mayors. They are often relieved of the role of solving the most complex problems, instead making things happen through campaigns.

This is classic, and effective, simplification. Find a real issue, create a solution that will make things better, sell and implement. Perfection is for others, achievable improvement is for good mayors.

Michael Bloomberg in NYC is a wonderful example of the effective mayor following this model. He works through campaigns. He may choose to take on an entrenched monopoly, whether taxi drivers, land owners or teachers. Or he may tackle a public health issue like obesity. Instead of trying to debate or solve climate change, he comes up with a practical plan that would help NYC.

Just this week Bloomberg announced a new sub-campaign related to health, suggesting that more NYC buildings should have accessible stairs to complement elevators. Simple, and brilliant. I hate going to places where I have to take the lift one or two floors because the stairs are basically out of bounds.

So that is another piece of advice that can work for all of us in our newly simplified lives. Operate through campaigns. It is fun and effective. Who works hardest to stop his common sense? You’ve guessed it, PR. One campaign, to limit portion sizes of sales of sugary drinks, came to grief at the hands of lobbyists for Coke and the rest, using all my raspberry arguments quoted above.   

Rioters and Teenagers

I have been surprised by some of the places that have seen street demonstrations over the last month. Egypt is no surprise to anyone after the unfinished business of the previous two years, but what about Brazil? Turkey? Even Sweden? It is almost the curse of the Economist, for those three places have had relentlessly positive write-ups over the last few years.

 

Confused, I read various accounts of causes, and tried to come up with my own analogy. Going through the balancing act of bringing up teenagers for the second time in my life, I think I have found a good one.

 

What is causing people to go out onto the streets? The articles trying to explain it have a few things in common but are often as confused as I am. I remember the UK riots of two summers ago, that sparked so dangerously from a single incident and then died down just as quickly. The consensus then was that there was no single cause, just a combination of factors coming together.

 

Everyone agrees that social media has played a practical role in sustaining the riots, making it easier for them to gain publicity and spread, allowing a modicum of planning and even of common cause. But that is like blaming the accelerant for the fire – the fire itself needs other causes.

 

One thing that links many of the demonstrators seems to be that from an independent perspective they seem to have gained a lot over the last few years. The immigrants in Sweden have been separated from their families, have to learn to live in a different culture and a harsh climate, and find it hard to gain jobs, but they seem to be plainly better off than they were back home. Their indigenous Swedish neighbours have some of the highest living standards and strongest social environment in the world. In Turkey and Brazil, a middle class has sprung from economic growth and enlightened social policies. The parents of the people complaining about bus fares in Sao Paulo could not afford buses at all twenty years ago, often walking for hours to get to work. A generation ago, not many people in Turkey had a life with enough food or work or decent houses to consider complaining about losing a park.

 

At first sight, this is a mystery. But I think it holds one key to understanding the riots.

 

In a less developed society, there are more important things to do than demonstrate. Just to eke out a living is all people have the energy for. After caring for the family, getting to and from work, working itself – often physical, and finding food, the only thing left to do is sleep and start again.

 

In this situation, there are other environmental things to prevent groups forming that might riot. Families are large, and usually multi-generational, with a strong culture of obeying elders, and often priests too. Social life revolves around family, which is invariably conservative. And social media are rarely evident. Finally, there is more to lose, since a loss of job would lead to destitution and even the sacrifice of a couple of meals can lead to illness.

 

So it is precisely because things have got better that the next generation of youths has some space and inclination to demonstrate, linking up with friends in their new-found spare time. This group will also be better educated, and follow the news and be more politically active. They will also travel more widely, and be able to see not just what they have but also what they lack that others have.

 

In this situation, a small spark can light the angry fire. The tinder will be drier if there some renewed hardship in a recession, when friends may have lost jobs. I wonder the extent to which debt or fear of debt plays a role, as the people may have used their new TV’s to swallow up adverts and to over-reach with their new-found credit lines.

 

Finally comes the insult. Politicians will have promised continued progress and then not delivered, so even an improvement may feel like a failure or a betrayal. If the elite is seen as corrupt and extravagant this feeling will get stronger. And worst of all will be any sense that the same elite condescends with an expectation of gratitude and subservience. “They don’t know how lucky they are” is likely to be met with a collective raspberry.

 

I can see most of these factors in place in Sweden, Turkey and Brazil, and start to understand how the cocktail can be explosive.

 

Running down that list of factors reminded me very much of teenagers, especially teenage boys. All of us who have been parents know that adolescence leads to new challenges.

 

Until the age of about eleven, kids stay very close to their parents and grandparents, and, occasional screams notwithstanding, they are amazingly trusting. In that cocoon, we can manage their happiness. Serious rebellions is rare.

 

Then comes adolescence. Education leads to a healthy challenge, even of parents. The kids look more to their peers and take in signals from a wider field. They start to understand responsibility, and with that comes fear and sometimes anger.

 

In this phase, the teenager takes offence easily (and gives it just as easily). They have setbacks, which can feel like betrayals, especially if they have been carelessly promised an easy ride or happy outcome. In their minds parents can become the excuse, the problem, an embarrassment. And many of us, certain of the effort and love we have invested, can respond with a little bit of condescension and even an exasperated “you don’t know how lucky you are”.

 

So we should not be surprised if we face some rebellion. In most cases, the phase is passed through without too much damage, and we can comfort ourselves that it was a healthy part of growing up, leading to a more mature adult.

 

Sometimes, if the child is cossetted or over-controlled, the rebellious phase is stifled, and then, when it finally arises, it is more extreme and harder to pull back for all parties. In my experience, a stifled adolescence can result in a late rebellion, or other forms of immaturity such as irresponsibility, chronic laziness or even addiction. I have doubts about the health of societies that still have altar boys of eighteen.

 

So, the analogy between the rioters of 2013 (teenagers and older) and teenage boys of every age feels quite strong. And so our experience as parents might offer clues as the best way to respond to today’s demonstrators.

 

First, we should try to celebrate. It is a positive sign that these societies have matured enough to enable a generation to challenge and grow. Demonstrations may not be much fun, just as it is not much fun when your teenage child shuns you, but it serves a positive wider purpose. History shows that the greatest gains for humanity have tended to follow challenges to elites.

 

Next, avoid the insults, the impossible promises, and the demands for gratitude. That is not part of the script. Instead, treat the demonstrators as young adults as much as possible, give them autonomy and respect. The Dutch are best practice in this regard, placing responsibilities and power in the hands of kids of all ages. It can be scary knowing that your 13-year-old is experimenting with drugs and sex, but it will usually lead to a more mature adult more quickly.

 

Of course we have to create as safe an environment as possible for this experimentation. There are bars in The Hague where underage drinking (and more) is tolerated by police, but a careful protective eye is close by if things go too far. The US alternative, banning alcohol in most states until kids are 21, feels likely to be counter-productive to me.

 

In the case of demonstrators, creating the safe environment means avoiding unnecessary provocation, being ready to respond as tolerantly as possible if things go too far, trying to build some mutual respect, and waiting for things to calm down.

 

So Dilma Rousseff in Brazil and the Swedish authorities in Stockholm seem to score at least eight out of ten for their response. The army in Egypt score a belated five, but face a much tougher challenge since the stifled adolescence there has been extreme. And Erdogan in Turkey so far scores two, committing all the sins listed above one after the other.

 

There are many societies around the world which can be compared with stifled adolescents. History warns that the rebellion, when it finally comes, will be damaging. The former Yugoslavia in the 1990’s and Burma today are examples. One day Saudi Arabia will face a reckoning. China is trying to allow some societal growing up, but is it enough?

 

There will be plenty of chances yet for politicians and armies to learn from their experiences as parents. Even when they do, as we parents know all too well, the outcome can still be more a matter of good fortune than judgement.