The Calm Mind in the Sea of Torment

Finding the right answer when world is yelling

Most people never get to experience one of the most magical moments of life. It’s rarely seen, because it occurs when everyone is focused on the disarray that surrounds us —we are looking somewhere else when it hits. And it seems magical because it’s so different from every other attitude in a moment. There doesn’t seem to be an explanation. How could someone act so differently? How could someone not react like everyone else?

It’s rare. But it does happen.

It’s the calm mind in a sea of torment.

If You Can Keep Your Head

Rudyard Kipling started his great poem If referencing it:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you

I remember watching someone exhibit this calm state of mind during a sporting event years ago. It was an NBA game and the Indiana Pacers were playing the Chicago Bulls. The Pacers’ Reggie Miller just hit a shot that put the Pacers ahead in the game’s final seconds. The crowd erupted in cheers. Seemingly, everyone in the arena was cheering and celebrating.

Everyone, that is, except one man who didn’t flinch. No smile. No fist pump. He stared, like a statue. The job wasn’t done. There was still time on the clock. There would be no break in focus to celebrate, at least by one man.

The man who didn’t flinch and didn’t celebrate was Larry Bird, the coach of the Pacers. You can see the moment here. While the entire arena celebrated — both fans and players — one person knew the game wasn’t over. There was a calm mind in the arena.

The calm represents the acceptance of the reality that the mission isn’t finished. And in this case, it wasn’t.

The Bulls had a player who also had a calm mind. The Pacers lost after a last-second shot by Michael Jordan. Apparently, you need more than a coach to have a calm mind.

Avoiding the Reflex

Having a calm mind means dodging the reflex that everyone else is having. It takes something extraordinary to remain still when everyone around is in motion.

Alfred Hitchcock visually represented this avoidance of the reflex in an unsettling shot in the film Strangers on a Train. At a tennis match, the heads of the spectators turn as the ball is struck from one side of the court to the other. But one man doesn’t move at all, staring at another character. The motionless man is avoiding the reflex of acting like everyone else. It’s unsettling to the audience, as it reveals that the man watching isn’t focused on the game around him but on something else entirely.

As a nod to Hitchcock, director Bill Paxton included a similar scene in his film The Greatest Game Ever Played, based on a book of the same name and the true story of the U.S. Open golf match between amateur Francis Ouimet and the great English professional golfer Harry Vardon. During the match, Vardon is watching Ouimet finish a round. Vardon and others intentionally plant themselves in Ouimet’s field of vision to intimidate the 20-year old. As Ouimet takes his shot, the entire gallery turns their heads to watch where the ball will go. But Vardon’s head and face don’t move. Reflex makes every head turn but one. The shot is an amazing visual representation of the calm mind. It shows that while everyone else is watching a game of golf, Harry Vardon and Francis Ouimet are engaged in physical and mental battle. Only the calm mind will prevail.

Isolation Can Help

Sometimes isolation is needed for the calm mind to prevail.

Go to a quiet place — a room, a building, nature.
Cut off the other voices.
Make sure that no one else’s reflex becomes your own.
Make sure that other’s urgencies don’t become your emergencies.
No distractions.

I’m reminded of Gregg Hurwitz’s fun character, Evan Smoak, who retreats slightly when the danger peaks — but only to calm his mind and discover a plan to unwind and erase the dangers that threaten him.

The Need for Someone to Be Calm

When the world is yelling, someone needs to be calm. And a calm mind can often demand its price — it’s invaluable and rare.

A calm mind allows us to do two things:

See reality for what it is, not what we want it to be or what someone else wants it to be.
Determine and focus on what we can control and affect.

If you see a group of people rising above incredible circumstances…

If you see a team harness a level of an unparalleled level of concentration when victory seems impossible…

If you see a person stay focused when the world is falling apart…

Then you might not have seen it, but someone, somewhere, has a calm mind in a sea of torment. And the calm mind is the only way to find the right answer when the world is yelling.

. . .

Learn the one lesson that has changed my life more than any other.