Balance and Breadth; Life upside down

In my breakdancing class I'm learning to do handstands. This is absolutely necessary for any cool moves because they all involve balancing on your arms instead of on your legs, but this has provided quite a challenge for me. I've never been a finesse kind of guy - I've always been a power through everything with strength and intelligence kind of guy rather than relying on patience and finesse. Finally I see clearly the limitations of each approach and the necessity of balance.

When doing a handstand, strength is definitely your friend - you have to have the upper body strength to hold yourself up and maintain that hold long enough to do something cool. The kind of strength necessary for this is not the same used to lift weights or play football, I would call that power more than strength. It takes a balanced strength: both arms have to exert the same amount of energy into each finger on each hand for proper control. If you simply power your way into the air you will easily get on your arms, but won't stay up for very long. This takes finesse.

This is the same in life. Before, I had been getting increasingly frustrated in situations that power and intelligence were not successful; I would blame the people around me, I would blame the place I live, blame luck, blame culture, or even blame myself that I am not strong enough and smart enough. This has been the wrong approach - I was trying to force myself into a handstand. The true sign of a great person (in my opinion and in only one aspect) is the ability to adapt and be successful in any situation. Even if the situation is rough and seemingly impossible, he (or she) stays calm and adapts himself where others cannot be influenced - he balances strength and weight and lifts himself off the ground. Now that I see this I have seen a huge change in myself - while I am still far from flexible enough to stand up, I understand the necessity of changing approaches.

A westerner living and working in China in a Chinese company is like a boxer learning to do a handstand - it gets more and more frustrating the harder you try. You flex your muscles and show your strength, but you don't realize that the more you flex the harder it is to balance, as some muscles are slightly stronger than others and you can't consciously control each one; you're dooming yourself to fall over.

People here work much differently than those in the West and are used to doing things a different way. I am not used to this and have been hoping that if I do things the best and fastest I can then I will succeed, but it turned out that doing everything and doing nothing have produced the exact same results - nothing. I fall over. Then I panic. I start doubting that this is the right place for me. I doubt that I can be successful here. I've been doing it all wrong. I've been powering through with all of my effort just to fall over backward and collapse on the floor, muscles strained and tired.

Instead I should be thinking balance and breadth - patience and finesse. Instead of powering through barriers I should be adapting and maneuvering to challenges. Barriers vs Challenges. This is a big change in mindset. A challenge is not necessarily a bad thing, but it requires the proper approach. A barrier is in the way to a goal. Overcoming a challenge results in inner growth. Getting through a barrier only provides relief. The problem is that there are infinite of these markers. After one challenge comes another, after one barrier comes another.

While sometimes pure strength and intelligence can get through a challenge, it cannot always. Now is no longer time for me to be strong - nor to rely solely on my intelligence. People are not difficult to deal with - they are just not used to certain approaches. I need to adapt a new way of approaching people at work. There is a way to succeed - there always is. If I can succeed here, no matter how long it takes, then I will have taken a huge leap in balancing myself, and it will prove that I can handle any challenge and there are no barriers. Perhaps success will be to decide to leave a poor situation - that is a sign of greatness as well. Like in poker, understanding when to fold your cards is just as important as how to play. What is important is understanding balance and breadth, strength and intelligence, patience and finesse on the inside, so I can get on my two hands and stand up, upside down.