Avurudu awakening for all

We just witnessed Avurudu this year. Having been plagued by a planetary pandemic, the multi-faceted economic crisis intensified in creating chaos. At least a ray of hope for an economic recovery comes with a cautious optimism. In such a context, Avurudu can be seen as an invitation for awakening, individually as well as interactively. Let us discuss it further.

Advent of Avurudu

Avurudu invites us to awaken ourselves. Typically, it is the time to rejoice, relax, reflect, and reinforce. Celebrating as Sinhalese and Tamils alike is the central key. Collaboration, consensus, and connectivity are all coveted concepts associated with Avurudu. Cheerful, optimistic and an open mindset can be a good starting point. I know, it became challenging with COVID-19 home-locked experience. Now, it appears to be more challenging amidst economic woes.

In order to change for the better, we need to recharge ourselves. There is no better time than this festive season to do so. I am talking of the need to take care of physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of our lives. This is an opportune time for renewal, an awakening to reality with focus on being better. We need an awakening in each of the above facets, in making the coming months a meaningful period of prosperity.

Awakening physically

Avurudu games traditionally had been an invitation for us to stay physically fit. This time it is different. The human body is the vehicle that takes us through the journey of life. Being healthy and fit is of utmost importance, despite our constant negligence of them. Finding quality time for physical exercises on a regular basis will be one sure cure for physical inactivity. Perhaps, having a good number of holidays would have given you ample time and space to reignite your exercising routines.

Having a healthy dietary pattern, in opting to be fit than fat, is another vital need. Avoiding tasty yet unhealthy food is not so easy. Wasting food while millions are starving worldwide should be stopped at least on our family front. Now, make the decision to allocate time for it, and to respect the commitment. That is what an awakening is all about.

Awakening mentally

Avurudu invites us to sharpen ourselves. As Stephen Covey highlighted as one of the seven habits of highly effective people, “sharpening the saw” is essential for growth and success. Ensuring that knowledge and skills are regularly updated and upgraded is what we need to focus on. The wide range of webinars during the past few weeks is a sign of a thirst for knowledge in using available time wisely.

Tom Peters gave a challenge to US managers a decade ago. Look back at the past six months and see whether you have acquired any new knowledge or skills. If the answer is “no,” you are stagnating with a blunt saw. As the Digital Journal tells us, the rate at which knowledge is becoming available is doubling every year and, on a curve, predicted to rise even faster. What we discover with regards to COVID-19 day by day is indeed illuminating.

With the internet as a vast ocean of knowledge offering a variety of informal learning approaches, learning has become a part and parcel of our lives. Despite occasional fake and hate news, we can learn something sensibly from social media as well. As Socrates said a long time ago, we learn from “the womb to the tomb.”

Awakening emotionally

Avurudu is a time to strengthen positive, constructive emotions. This became acute amidst COVID-19 pandemic where psychologists advocate for us to embrace more enthusiasm despite the existing doom and gloom. The same applies in the context of the extended economic crisis as well. There are people who have successfully passed their exams but have miserably failed in their lives. Being aware of constructive emotions as well as destructive emotions surrounding our lives, is the first step. Laziness and anger are two common examples of destructive emotions. Enthusiasm and determination are common constructive emotions.

As experts on Emotional Intelligence (EI) say, self-awareness should lead to self-regulation. That is when you are in control of your emotions and then channelling them towards achievements. This is especially true if you are in an organisational leadership position. As Daniel Goldman, who popularised the concept of EI advocate, leaders should be 70% more emotionally intelligent than the others. This is a fitting time to show that in both words and deeds.

Awakening socially

Avurudu unites the nation and socially bonds the country. As we know, no one is an island. Human beings are social animals. Human connectivity is an essential requirement for any community to foster. In a high-tech world, where speed is a key factor, the high-touch dimension of relationships should not be neglected. I have seen many achievement-oriented executives who have “married” to their jobs whilst their neighbours take care of their families.

A renewal should ensure the fostering of relationships with the team at work, and more importantly with the team at home. This is a golden and opportune time for us to do so. Building better relationships, taking quality time off from your work to be with your loved ones, and involving in voluntary work are some of the popular activities in this respect.

This was challenging in a time where social distancing was strictly regulated. Now it is a different challenge. Being more socially conscious of what is going around. Rather than allowing the opportunistic politicians to further ruin a fragmented nation, hope for a new beginning with a robust and transparent system is looming large.

Awakening spiritually

Avurudu is very much associated with religious traditions. Moving beyond rituals, it is a time where we revisit and reinforce our values. As we are constrained in visiting religious places this year, it gives us the opportunity to be more “inward bound.” That highlights the central connect or the underpinning for the above four awakenings that we discussed. It is what I would prefer to call a spiritual awakening.

There is a difference between being spiritual and being religious. One can visit a temple, kovil, mosque or a church every day, but at constant loggerheads with neighbours. Being spiritual is much deeper in moving beyond rituals in being righteous. It requires a set of values that governs your behaviour. Honesty and integrity can be the commonest examples. Harmony between your set of values and the corporate values of your organisation will ensure long term association between you and your organisation. The COVID-19 home-locked experience helped us to strengthen our value base in truly living them in the spirit of humanity. Now it is how we extend it to strive for a fresh beginning towards a better Sri Lanka.

Awakening to awesome results

Awakening of one’s physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions should lead to better understanding of oneself. Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in their seminal HBR article titled “Making of a Corporate Athlete,” vividly describe the importance of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual “capacities.” According to them, organisations cannot afford to utilise their employees’ capacities, while ignoring their physical, emotional, and social wellbeing. They offer us further insights in these aspects:

“In a corporate environment that is changing at warp speed, performing consistently at high levels is more difficult and more necessary than ever. Narrow interventions simply aren’t sufficient anymore. Companies can’t afford to address their employees’ cognitive capacities while ignoring their physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. On the playing field or in the boardroom, high performance depends as much on how people renew and recover energy as on how they expend it, on how they manage their lives as much as on how they manage their work. When people feel strong and resilient – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually –they perform better, with more passion, for longer. They win, their families win, and the corporations that employ them win.”(Loehr and Schwartz, 2001)

The key point here is the need to have a balanced approach towards performance. Awakened employees will ensure their commitment towards assigned tasks in achieving the expected results. Moreover, they will become better human beings, and not “human doings or un-doings.”

The way forward

“It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow,” said Robert H. Schuller. We need to go beyond festivities to ensure focused action leading to future revival. It is healthy people who should strive hard to recover a terribly ailing economy.

May the different Avurudu this year herald an era of economic revival with engaged and enthusiastic people who are genuine in their words and deeds. The era of IMF assistance should be a time of focused deliberations with the involvement of all needy rather than a futile way of spending and more spending. Then only the true effect of the harmony across the nation could be seen, paving the way for peace, prosperity, and productivity. May this Avurudu be that auspicious era of awakening for all of us.

(The writer, a faculty member of the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIM), can be reached at [email protected], [email protected] or   www.ajanthadharmasiri.info.)