If you don’t know this about me, one of my all-time favorite movies is Evan Almighty.

It combines so many of my favorite things:

Steve Carell.

Morgan Freeman.

Washington, D.C.

Pg-13 appropriate hilarity.

And The Bible!

(obviously)

Anyways, I re-watched it recently specifically because I wanted to refresh my memory of an alpaca spitting in a corrupt politician’s face.

What can I say?

We all have our fantasies.

Point being, I did not expect to be made to think.

And yet that’s exactly what happened.

(I’m about to spoil the movie, fair warning)

See, the crux of the plot is that a congressman cut corners to build a dam in order to develop nearby land, and as a result, it’s riddled with weaknesses.

Thus, when the pressure of the water gets too great, the dam breaks, cracking open like rotten egg and flooding everything (hence why an ark was necessary).

Watching that scene, I realized something which has kind of been a eureka moment for me:

Pressure reveals where we’re weak.

I’ll say that again.

Pressure reveals where we’re weak.

I don’t know about you, but lately, Queen’s “Under Pressure” has pretty much become my anthem during quarantine.

And I’ll be honest…

It’s led to some cracking.

So today I’d like to share the three areas that are, I think, frequently revealed to be weak (they certainly were for me!), and then offer some tips on how to reinforce those areas so you don’t flood everything!

1. Temperament

I like to think of myself as a pretty easy going person, and by and large, I’d say I have a solid grasp on my emotions.

However!

Recently, both claims have been put under a fair bit of strain thanks to a whole mess of things not exactly going my way.

As a result, cracks have started showing in both my words and on my face.

Patience, in particular, has shown itself to be a point where my dam is apt to break.

HOWEVER!

One thing quarantine has been great for is podcast listening, and just last week, I stumbled on a podcast that’s helped me tremendously.

Much thanks to former Navy Seal Jocko Willink and his co-host Echo Charles who offered succinct yet solid advice on what to do when an emotion is pressurizing your insides.

“Identify it, and separate the feeling from behavior.”

It’s so simple, but over the last week, this has worked really well for me!

I suspect it’s because identifying the feeling depressurizes it immediately.

When I have to stop and say,

“I’m being impatient (hangry, frustrated, etc.) right now.”

It takes agency out of the feeling and gives control back to me.

Once that happens, the feeling (whatever it may be) tends to subside significantly.

However!

Even if it doesn’t, the latter half of the advice–separating the feeling from behavior–keeps cracks and floods at bay because while I might not be able to completely push impatience (hanger, frustration, etc.) away, I can do my level best to keep it from affecting my words and face.

2. Self-discipline

I don’t know about you, but self-discipline is very important to me.

In fact, in high school, I seriously considered going to a service academy or participating in ROTC because I figured that no place was as disciplined as the military.

Unfortunately, I realized very quickly that 1) I could never meet the physical requirements, 2) I loathe mud and getting dirty, and 3) I don’t like it when people scream at me.

In brief, the military was not going to be my scene.

Nevertheless!

I still hold myself to a pretty strict routine, pieces of which include getting up early, exercising/writing daily, and reading the Bible first thing in the morning.

However…

Pretty much all that went out the window last week.

Between starting a new job, coordinating events for clubs, and my insomnia acting up, I felt like I’d gotten hit by a truck, and almost all of my regiment failed to hold up.

One by one, my daily habits and activities were washed away, and by the end of the week, I was not okay.

Frankly, I was a complete and utter hot mess.

The AC going out in the house did not help with this, but the fact of the matter is, in the face of even modest pressure and stress, almost all my self-discipline vanished.

It was a very rude awakening, and in the last week, I’ve done my best to get things back to how they should be.

It hasn’t been easy, but what’s given me the reinforcement I need is recalling what Auschwitz survivor Dr, Viktor Frankl wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning:

“He who has a why can bear almost any how.”

Now, he was writing on how he survived the Holocaust, which is obviously much more significant than my self-discipline being shot.

However, the same principle applies, and that is in the face of pressure and adversity of any kind, you need a why.

For me, recovering and reinforcing my self-discipline has meant asking myself why the routine I cultivated matters to me.

Why do I get up early?

Why do I exercise and write daily?

Why do I read the Bible first thing in the morning?

Answering those questions has helped me see why my routine is essential rather than incidental to my well-being, and I’m confident that in the future, having those whys will keep my self-discipline from cracking!

3. Relationships

I’m incredibly fortunate to have a lot of love in my life.

Honestly, my family and friends are one of a kind, and the relationships I have with them are things I prize and do my best to prioritize.

However…

When things went crazy last week, I pretty much stopped communicating with everybody.

I quit calling and texting–forget facetiming–and for a over a week, it was radio silence from me.

I now see that cracks in relationships form incredibly quickly.

A day of no contact can become a week which becomes a month then a year, and before you know it, the entire relationship has disappeared.

It’s such a scary thought because whether or not you pick up the phone, time and life keep marching on, and I think it’s 100% true that you never fully appreciate someone until they’re gone.

Last week made that very clear to me, and I now see that I have a number of relationships that are cracked due to inactivity.

However!

Having realized that, I’ve made it my mission to address the relationships in my life that need some TLC ASAP.

I actually wrote out a hit list of people that I haven’t spoken to recently, and I’m going to work my way through them starting this week because even just thinking about how much of their lives I’ve already missed irritates me.

So, fair warning.

Texts, calls, and facetimes are incoming.

That’s all for this week!

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