This week, our project group focused on the workspace（what’s the difference between “workspace” and “workplace”?) and personal agency. At the same time, we are considering if DAO (Decentralized autonomous organization) and meditation could help improve the workplace in real world?
Personal Agency
This week, I joined the workshop “Personal Agency and Social Rights”. What is “agency”? If I translate this word in Chinese, we usually understand it as a firm, organization, or business that provides a specific or specialist service. However, in this workshop and under this topic, “agency” means a feeling of purpose. Looking back to the past 3 years during the Pandamic, I had serveral agencies and I did some changes. In 2020, I tried and got the promotion opportunity to be deployed to work in GBA city. In the new environment, I made new friends who are hardworking and professional in their fileds. At the same time, I started to learn coffee and yoga, and built up the coffee and yoga circle. Every coin has 2 sides, I got better salary and had spare time to enjoy my hobbies, I also faced the bottleneck in the workplace. I felt I know nothing, I don’t have some special technology and skills, I felt I dont have self-worth. I felt frustrated in a period and started to think about how to make some changes. I decided to get out of the comfort zone again and considered to apply for UAL to study and learn something new. The process is not easy. I need to work but at the same time, I need to spend time on studying and preparing my study proposal and interview. Very lucky, I got the offer and passed the IELTS in a very short time. When everything seems get ready, and I decided to quit my job and come to London, my mom was diagnosed as Lung cancer. I was very stressful and reluctant to continue my plan or give up this opportunity. I came back my hometown and accompanied with her to do the surgery in the hospital. I almost forget how to confront the difficulties and depression during the period. Thanks god, her surgery was successful and the treatment was in early stage, everything seems to be getting better, then I discussed with my parents, supported by them, I decided to conduct my “agency” and fly to London.
Workspace
My past workspace is incluenced by workplace hierarchies. People with higher position have larger and priviate room/space while staffs with lower position have smaller and more public space. Normal staffs sometimes would feel very stressful because they feel they are monitered by supervisor who sit back of them and can moniter what they do from the screen. Opportunities to participate in and access support and guidance are distributed in ways that reflect workplace political and power relationships (Billett, 2021). This is very true and happen in many workplace. In our case, there might not have the colour different but there are backgroud different. Staffs with backgrounds (related to family, experience, seniority, boss support, appreance previlige etc.) will have more opportunities to be promoted than normal staffs.
Meditation
I started to learn Ashtanga yoga since 2020. The first class was learning how to breath via nose, how to concentrate on the breath. As a normal person, I got a lot of annoying issues around me. Most of time, it was hard for me to concentrate on the breath and the posture when practing yoga. 2 years passed, I think I did not understand what is “meditation” and how to meditate untill today, I was inspired by the Tedtalks shared by mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe and internationally recognized expert in mindfulness Dr. Shauna Shapiro about “meditation” and “the present moment”.
Andy Puddicombe asked us to think “When is the last time you did absolutely nothing for 10 whole minutes? Not texting, talking or even thinking?” and “Not even sitting there reminiscing about the past or planning about the future. Simply doing nothing”. In our daily life, we got stress because we need to consider too much issues, we care about our life, our study, our job, our car and even our hair and we dont know how to deal with them. At the same time, we miss out the most important to us which is the “present moment”. Meditation could help us “not being lost in thought, not being distracted, not being overwhelmed by difficult emotions, but instead learning how to be in here and now, how to be mindful, how to be present.” Andy said the present moment is so underrated and sounds ordinary, and we spend so little time in the present moment. Both Andy and Dr. Shauna mentioned, a research paper came out of the Harvard said on average, our minds are lost in thought almost 47% of the time. And this sort of constant mind-wandering is also a direct cause of unhappiness. As Andy said, meditation is a way to allow us “to step back, to familiarize yourself with the present moment.” I was very stressful and anxious after I got the Covid last few weeks. I always feel tired, and I cannot concentrate on reading and writing. And I’m not able to do exerice and practice yoga like before. And Covid also made me stay home to self-isolate and ruined my plan to go to school and to Cambridge to visit my friend. Above situations make me feel frustrated, but today inspired by Andy’s talks, I tried to do meditate, tried to only focus on the breath, and when I feel relaxing, I fell asleep. I think it’s not bad for me. And I downloaded the “Headspace” which established by Andy and get ready to the “mindfulness journey”.