A tale of two mindsets

There are two ways to solve any problem. One is faster, more impulsive and usually a defeatist approach while the other is more accurate, thought-driven and more likely to result in success. We employ either of the two methods to solve mental stress at the workplace.

Mental stress can have different origins but conflicts with coworkers and most importantly, with our superiors make up that chunk of stress of which we often are unable to find any plausible solution to. The two mindsets described above were practically demonstrated recently by two individuals of our national cricket team, Fawad Alam and Mohammad Amir.

How many times have we tried to figure out the “mood of the day” of our superiors before approaching them for anything? Everyone has, more than one would want, faced the music and landed on the wrong side of their bosses. How many times have we reasoned their unreasonable behaviour with the stereotypical “must have had a fight with the missus”?

The image which comes to mind when someone says the word “boss” is that of an angry and powerful person who always wears a frown of disapproval. The only consolation we, as subordinates — as junior doctors, lawyers, policemen, labour force or as an employee of any organisation — have is choosing our response to the irrational behaviour, be it by a colleague at the same level as us or any senior team member.

Mohammad Amir and Fawad Alam faced similar challenges in the dressing room. They were both up against a common boss who was as unaccommodating as one would be to do justice with the title, but their mindset and attitude were worlds apart.

Fawad Alam mastered fear and patience and took the long and hard way to success. Last year, he returned to the Pakistan test cricket squad to play his first test match after being dropped for 88 consecutive test matches, over a period of 10 years. “I don’t blame anyone even after losing 10 precious years of my life,” were his words on his comeback.

During this decade of not being picked by the selectors, Fawad Alam held his bat close to his heart and worked his way up in the domestic circuit and scored almost 13,000 runs in a 16year first-class career at a healthy average of 56.84 until finally being called for national duty last year where he scored crucial centuries for his side.

In the ongoing home series against South Africa, Fawad Alam has once again scored a match-winning century in the first test match and guided Pakistan to victory by hitting the winning shot. Mohammad Amir, on the other hand, made impulsiveness his mentor and resigned from the national side with one eye on flashy cricket leagues around the world.

The reason for the sudden departure he gave was mental stress and torture by the Pakistan Cricket Board and team management. Not forgetting his part in the infamous spot fixing scandal of 2010 which landed him in jail and Pakistan’s international image in deep water, it was the same board which allowed him to re-join the national cricket team.

Amir should have walked in Fawad Alam’s footsteps who did the talking through his bat, showed resilience, gratitude, intent and a positive mindset in response to workplace mental stress and earned love and respect from all over the cricketing world. It is a dog-eat-dog world where physical and mental stress always surrounds the working class.

Life is a stress test wherein surrendering to chronic pressure causes that part of our brain to increase in size which is responsible for making a person responsive to stress, ultimately pushing us in the whirlpool of no escape.