What do you do when there’s a stone in your shoe?

The willingness to live the values we espouse gives us the right to demand the same of our leaders. PHOTO | FOTOSEARCH 

By MAKENA MWANIKI

The obvious answer is to stop and remove the irksome obstruction. I have, however, noticed that when I have a stone in my shoe, I tend to put up with it for some time. Sometimes it is because I feel the discomfort but I’m not aware what is causing it.

I try different strategies; turning my foot this way and that to slightly ease the discomfort but this only makes my steps uncomfortable in a different way. I wiggle my toes to create a comfortable resting place for the bothersome bit, which only makes it more irritating.

When all else fails, I try to ignore it and march stoically on. Like the proverbial stone in my shoe, promptings or pricks of our conscience make us question what we truly value.

They create a level of frustration but they also raise awareness. They call into question current strategies of dealing with issues. But once we deal with the stone, what sweet relief.

What stones do we need to remove?

Are you tired of seeing corrupt and mediocre leadership thrive in our society? How long can you continue allowing them to set the leadership benchmark and dictate what happens to us?

We Kenyans are an apparently amorphous lot of submissive followers and comfortable observers. We go about our lives, murmuring and complaining but still, we dare not act.

We react in anger, shock or disappointment one moment and then the next, turn up the volume on our radio and hum along to Sauti Sol’s Sura yako mzuri….Comfortable with the false notion that we can avoid pain or discomfort permanently by doing nothing, we adjust our tolerance level for corruption and mediocrity, a notch higher.

Values are discovered

Awareness of personal values gives us the courage to stop hiding and be our authentic selves. It helps us build the capacity to express ourselves as we truly are.

The willingness to live the values we espouse, for example walk the talk, then gives us the right to demand the same of our leaders and helps us inspire the same from our followers.

Without this fundamental awareness, we end up living inauthentic, mediocre lives, never discovering or expressing our true selves.
We also, by extension, accommodate the same in others, be it our family, friends or leaders.

The Iceberg Principle, developed by Freud, illustrates typical leadership behaviour. Those things we talk about, and what to do, appear above the surface, visible to others. What lies underneath the iceberg is the real cause of most behaviour – our values, our beliefs and our thoughts.

Interestingly, just like moving an iceberg, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to change behaviour without understanding and shifting what is below the surface. It can also take only a slight shift below the surface to have an immediate impact on behaviour above the surface.

The point is that, in order to change behaviour we need to start at what drives that behaviour. It takes time and requires courage to examine what lies beneath our thoughts; our values and beliefs about ourselves and the world.

We need to adapt to our environment, not lose ourselves in it

I once worked for a multi-national company in Kenya that required a level of adaptability in the use of language that bordered on the absurd.

People always used annoying jargon and confusing buzzwords like “alignment”, “synergistic”, “holistic”, “take off-line”, “robust” and “granular”. Profanity was widely acceptable.

I hated myself every time I caught myself doing the same. Had I remained in that company, I would have probably lost touch with the part of me that was uncomfortable in that situation.

The continued influence of that environment would have caused me to bury my values in an attempt to end the discomfort.

In reality, though, that would not have resolved my internal conflict. It would have just buried it so deep that I would no longer be aware of it.

Over the years, I have observed that I have a tendency to pull away from uncomfortable situations, cutting them off by seeking distractions and diversions. I end up busy, working, shopping, binge TV series watching, doing anything to numb my emotional discomfort.

Mindlessly disobeying the soul. How time wasting, futile and frustrating my attempts to avoid all feelings of distress and unease have been.

Like the stone in my shoe, I needed to deal with the issues. If your values are not aligned with your behaviour, it doesn’t matter if other people find out. You know you are being a hypocrite and your soul will find ways to pester you.

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Jiddu Krishnamurti, 1895 –1986, Indian speaker and author.