Miguel de Cervantes wrote and published Don Quixote in 1605, almost 500 years ago.
Sir Quixote is about a middle-aged aristocrat who spends all his time reading knight stories. He devours the tales until, one day, “his brain was exhausted” and “at last he lost the use of his reason.” Quixote then sets off on an aged horse and dedicates his life to wandering the countryside as a gallant knight, confronting wickedness, performing virtue, and conforming in every way he can to the values of the knights populating the stories he read.
He has a servant named Sancho, an illiterate commoner who responds to Don Quixote’s speeches with famous proverbs. The mismatched couple has remained a critical literary archetype since then. Whereas Don Quixote is too sober for his own good, Sancho has a sharp sense of humour. While Don Quixote deceives himself and others, Sancho lies only when it suits him.
In the most famous scene of the book, Quixote identifies a field of windmills as giants, engages them in battle, and is struck to the ground by a rotating sail. Although Sancho helps him into this battle, he knows the windmills are not real enemies, and he mocks the situation from the beginning till the end.
Fast forward almost five centuries, today most people can feel like they are battling against the windmills in their daily work. Think about the last e-mail chain you were trying to find the right answer; think about the last conversation about the wage raise or the last conference call with 20 different stakeholders.
The question is: Are you Don Quixote or Sancho while you are battling the windmills?
Let me rephrase the question: Are you always too serious while trying to solve the daily issues or progress through your daily routine, or can you use our sense of humour in your daily battle?
If you ask me for the answer, there is no single answer to this question. Don Quixote and Sancho always lie together in everyone’s consciousness.
I will draw a picture for you to understand what I just said: Take a moment to get comfortable and allow yourself to relax. Think about the worst moment in the last week. What was the battle about? What did you do? Did you try to solve the issue with a serious approach? Did you argue with your colleagues, or your boss, or even with your clients? What if you had realized that it was not a battle, just a part of the daily routine and relaxed and tried to find something to laugh about the situation and start over? What if you made a joke and grabbed a cup of coffee with your colleague and talked about the situation from scratch? Would it end differently?
Question of the week: Can you find a completely different approach to solve the biggest problem of the last week?
Practice of the week: The most accurate and most productive path for all of us is that offered by Sancho Panza, whose role is to state simple truths, none more important than that “those you see yonder are no giants, but windmills.”
