Get Career Fit, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 8 Focus

How can you make each day matter?

‘If you take care of the minutes, the years will take care of themselves.’

Tibetan saying

There’s a scene in the 1999 sci-fi movie The Matrix where the hero of the film, Neo (Keanu Reeves), must test the extent of his untried powers. He has doubts about his role in the simulated reality called the Matrix.

Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), his mentor, believes in the Oracle’s prophecy that Neo is the One, the person who will save humankind from subjugation by the sentient machines that created the Matrix. He encourages Neo to leap from one high-rise building to another to help awaken his understanding of his potential capabilities.

‘You have to let it all go, Neo. Fear. Doubt. Disbelief. Free your mind,’ says Morpheus, before he jumps and soars effortlessly between the two buildings.

Neo walks to the edge of the building, looks down towards the ground far below and mumbles, ‘Okey-dokey. Free my mind.’ He walks back to the other side of the building to give himself a runway. As he prepares himself he mutters again and again, ‘Free my mind. No problem. Right.’ He slaps his hands together, braces himself, runs, leaps … and plummets to the ground, face first.

Those watching the training jump are disappointed, most expecting a different outcome. Someone then points out, ‘Everybody falls the first time.’

By the end of the movie, Neo is fully in touch with his capabilities. He can leap tall buildings, stop flying bullets in midair ...