When I
received the invite to join the
Model United Nations at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office I
experienced both curiosity and fear. On one hand I wanted to get involved in
such an interactive learning experience to expand myself, but on the other hand
there was this thought bugging me saying "I am not ready, I need more time
to prepare myself".
Well, time
is always against us so I can't really use that excuse - I could indeed had
more time to prepare myself but the reality was that I didn't and that should not
be the final reason to not participate. In self-honesty, behind this thought
there were other excuses, such as the fear of not being good enough to
participate in such an event, or that I would be judged as not knowledgeable
enough, or as not having prior experience to fit in.
As part of
my process of getting to know myself, I knew that I wanted to do this and that
this was an excellent opportunity to be close to the real-life processes of
conflict resolution - so why postpone it? When there is self-will, there is
direction and creation. So I asked for a day off at work (luckily I didn't have
any major meetings that day) and I decided to accept. The next day I joined 30
other young people at the FCO to discuss and reach an agreement for the
scenario crisis in Ruritania (fictional country).
In this blog
the main point that I want to express is my (our) relationship with the idea of
not being ready for something - the idea that others are more ready than us, or
that readiness is never actually felt. Regardless of how I felt about being
ready or not, I knew in this specific instance that I would only know how ready
I was if I tried. And in the end of the day, I wasn't that unready for such a
task.
I would
obviously not be ready if this was a real-life scenario where people were
actually affected as a result of the negotiations in the room, but this was not
the point. I was ready to sit at the table, to listen to what other people were
saying, to evaluate their arguments, to express my position, to consider
the dynamics in the ecossistema of
negotiations and, most importantly, I was aware of myself in this situation.
What I mean by self-awareness is that I was aware of me in that moment, I could
also see why I was nervous when I introduced myself and I was then able to stop
the self-judgments to bring me back here to the task. It is interesting how my
communication was a little bit shaky when I was telling my name, where I was
coming from and describing an event that I was proud of (as part of the
breaking-the-ice exercise). After that, I took a deep breath, I reminded myself
why I was there, I also reminded me that the self-judgments are not real and I
restarted as fresh. From that moment, I was able to communicate myself
efficiently, to listen to another without the backchat of "what is the
other thinking of me", and I allowed myself to be creative in the process
of drafting our resolution.
At the end
of the exercise I wondered...
How people
in real-life deal with their own minds (or if they deal with it at all!),
especially when the outcome of a discussion will determine the life of other
human beings that are unable to express their views at the table?
How
decision-makers deal with their own self-judgments and if they manage to put
them aside to focus on this physical reality?
In common
sense, people should be self-honest to see wheather or not they are ready to
decide upon other people's lives; and if not, to get serious about
investigating one's mind...
We are
speaking about humans like you and I, that have an inner mind, that have
memories, that have concerns, fears, addictions, beliefs and bias. It is
essential to at least be aware of these in order to change the future. As the
Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman wrote in his bestseller "Thinking, Fast
and Slow", there are cognitive factors that we may or may not be aware of
that will influence our behaviour and decisions in real life. One example is
the influence of food breaks in one's judgement, where experiments on judges
have shown that tired and hungry judges tend to change their behaviour and
disapprove more cases than during the time just after breaks, in which the
proportion of approved cases spikes after each meal and starts decreasing
during the two hours until the next feeding break (Kahneman, 2011, p. 43-44). Perhaps the idea
of having a break when we saw the food coming in may have assisted opening the
communication with a colleague, and during the lunch break we were all more
talkative than before. It is not by coincidence that it is during the food
break that leaders have the opportunity to speak off the record and reach
certain agreements before the final round of votes. Regardless of the time of
the day, in such moments one's motivation should not be the next lunch but to
be assertive and consistent in one's behaviour (but obviously make sure the
body is fed regularly!)
Back to the subject on readiness, I am now
realising that the idea of being ready has two dimensions to consider: one is
to be ready within oneself to deal with the various internal conflicts that may
arise, to deal with another's views, to be able to put aside beliefs and to be
honestly available to reach an outcome that is best for all. The other side of
"readiness" is the amount of information or knowledge that one has
prepared to bring along, to communicate and to influence the discussions. No
matter how many books one reads, knowledge and information without common-sense
or self-integrity can be fatal. The other way around will not work either, as
one must be equiped with the necessary intelectual tools in order to share the
information in a clear and contextual way.
On this
topic, it is relevant to point out the incredibly importance of vocabulary in a
specific environment. The more vocabulary one has, including the understanding
of the words and its meanings, the better one will be able to make sense of
another's speech and be understood. In certain cases, using very complex
language may demonstrate knowledge but if it is actually expressing a
self-interested view or even a personal interest that disregards the right to
life of certain peoples for example, then it is clear that knowledge is in
misalignment with our readiness to decide upon the future of the whole
humanity. There is a long way to walk in this area of cognitive disalignment
with that which Humanity has in common (especially because diplomacy is still
very much nation-centred).
To conclude
this post, was I ready to write about this topic? Well, ready or not I just did
- the fact that I had an initial realisation about "readiness" and
then the discipline to sit down and writ about it is all it needed to make it
happen. Nevertheless, this is also the result of the process that I have been
walking over the last six years of writing, of slowing down the mind, of
investigating my mind, of rewiring my mind through self-forgiveness and
changing my acceptances and allowances, both inside me and in my relationship
to the world.
It would
have been unnaceptable if I had decided to not be ready when I have been
studying, reading and having access to resources that enable me to become an
active and empowered citizen. Attending and participating in such a
scenario-project (or any kind of simulation) has certainly assisted me to test
my skills, my self-awareness, my correction in real-time, my self-stability and
communication skills in a safe environment. Finally, it was also a great
opportunity to do a reality-check as to what skills I need to develop and
practice more in order to be prepared for real-life decision making.
For more
information about the Model United Nations at the FCO:
http://www.nmun.org/
Reference: Kahneman, D. (2011), Thinking, Fast and Slow, Penguin Books Ltd: London
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