Executive Functioning

An exploration of our own personal sovereignty in a fast paced world.

“He breathed inwardly, maintaining his balanced form, knowing that losing the form would mean losing the battle and his life.”

According to the dictionary, Executive Functioning is a noun that describes a set of cognitive skills used to control one’s thoughts and behaviors, especially skills needed to focus on and organize tasks.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/executive-function

In the last article I read, by Common Sense Rebel, he states the executive function can be biologically expensive and cites medical references to back this statement. He is correct in this.

In our world, where the demand for increased productivity for the sake of someone else’s profit has indeed become exhausting for all of us and our corporate world does seem to increase the pressure year after year. Even when the your not in the workplace physically, there is the

• Morning traffic that invariably makes you late

• The weekend rest that is never long enough to really recover

• The work that you take home with you

• The work that invades your dreams at night.

We’ve all experienced this.

During COVID 19, the corporate world discovered that it had no choice but to adapt to the reality that working from home was the only way to keep going during the crises; if they resisted this, they wound up losing money and in some cases, sometimes closing altogether.

For myself, I found that during the last 3 years of my working life during that time of COVID 19, I had discovered that about 50% of my stress had been removed just by removing the morning traffic routine.

I was no longer stressed about how I got to work. I was not worried about whether the car would start or not. That was meaningful.

Was the work still stressful? Of course. The expectations were stressful too, but I could still slow down the process of my waking. I had more time to actually enjoy the morning cup, the morning breath, a little breakfast and during my breaks and lunches, I could go outside to my neighborhood and I could perform the 24 form and sometimes the 32 sword form if I had extra time.

So, I made a conscious choice to utilize my free time wisely to actually slow down the hectic pace and take some time to just be me and not feel like I was entirely shaped by the demands of the corporate entities.

Around the end of that time, we kept hearing some of the execs repeating the same mantra of “we believe that our people work better together in the office” , which meant reintroducing the stressful morning rush hour, the hectic running into the building, etc. etc. I always felt that translation was more like

“Okay. You’ve had your fun. Now you need to come back to the office”

I knew it would take time for them to find another building to rent, so when they offered early retirement, I made the decision to take it rather than surrender to their will.

This, too, is an example of executive functioning.

Prioritizing your own mental health is not a weakness; slowing down does not mean a lack of productivity. it’s actually a sign of resilience and resistance against the demands of the corporate machinery that we have allowed to rule over us.