“FIRE AND MOTION”
This Disquiet, as I have described in detail here in my web site, is a restlessness or unease that many men have. It’s tied to our sense of success professionally and as men. Many of us have tried to ignore it, distract or numb the pain of it or learned to engage the wisdom in it.

Ignoring it is short-lived. The Disquiet gets worse. It may go underground and become a private-no-one-knows rumbling background of dissatisfaction - but it’s there. You can feel it.

Suppressing it - that’s where we jump into using anything we can find to distract or numb the pain of the unease. Favorite flavors? Alcohol, drugs, TV, sex, food, gambling, hi-risk sports and behavior. Nothing wrong with most of them, but it’s bad when they become a drug of choice we become addicted to in trying to kill the pain.

That leaves the recommended action - ENGAGE IT. You can read why its important in all the content here at this site. It’s the wise choice.

But how? Where do you start? If you have tried, have you ever felt stuck? Like it’s a hamster wheel and you can’t get off?

I read an article by Joel Spolsky who spoke of some wisdom he picked up. I think it can help here:

When I was an Israeli paratrooper a general stopped by to give us a little speech about strategy. In infantry battles, he told us, there is only one strategy: Fire and Motion. You move towards the enemy while firing your weapon. The firing forces him to keep his head down so he can’t fire at you. (That’s what the soldiers mean when they shout “cover me.” It means, “fire at our enemy so he has to duck and can’t fire at me while I run across this street, here.” It works.)?

The motion allows you to conquer territory and get closer to your enemy, where your shots are much more likely to hit their target. If you’re not moving, the enemy gets to decide what happens, which is not a good thing. If you’re not firing, the enemy will fire at you, pinning you down.

It took me another fifteen years to realize that the principle of Fire and Motion is how you get things done in life. You have to move forward a little bit, every day.

Thanks Joel! That is a great metaphor for engaging your Disquiet. Take “fire” by turning into the discomfort. Face your “enemy” the pain of the unease. Feel it fully in your belly or wherever you feel its tension and pain. Stop running away from it and “move” towards it.

What does that mean? Take it on. Don’t stay frozen in the ruts you have found yourself in. Admit to yourself that something is trying to get your attention with a 2×4. The pain is just like the pain in an overused muscle - it’s got a message for you. Get that message and start taking action to make things different. Here’s the punch line:

Taking action that is a result of looking into and feeling fully the pain is “wise action”. It’s different that just trying anything to get away form the pain.

So Fire and Move - that is the way to begin to take actions that are smart ones that will ultimately resolve the pain coming from the deepest part of you that is trying to tell you something important.

I would like to hear when you have “fired and moved”. How has this tactic worked for you?

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Tags: Podcasts, Resources, The Disquiet, Working with change, israeli paratrooper, resolve the pain

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 18th, 2006 at 7:16 am and is filed under Podcasts, Resources, The Disquiet, Working with change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.