The timetable on the board
Monday. The half-yearly timetable went up on the board.
Maths was the day after Hindi. The syllabus was three chapters longer than anyone thought. And a rumour: after the exams, the sections would be reshuffled.
Dhruv worried all evening. He did not open a book. “What are you doing, beta?” said Mummy. “Thinking about the exam.”
By bedtime nothing on the board had moved. Tonight’s chapter was still unread.
The idea
The idea
Separate what you can move, what you can only nudge, and what you can only have opinions about.
Here is what the three words mean, on Monday night.
Draw yourself as a dot. Round the dot, three rings.
The near ring is what you can move. Your hand is on it. When you move, it moves. Tonight’s chapter. The middle ring is what you can nudge. You can push, and someone else decides. The class can ask ma’am to move the Maths paper. Ma’am decides.
The far ring is what you can only have an opinion about. You can think what you like. It moves for nobody in the room. The syllabus. The exam date.
To tell the rings apart, ask each worry one question. If I did something about it tonight, what would be different tomorrow?
Tonight’s chapter: read it, and tomorrow it is read. Near ring. The Maths paper’s day: ask, and tomorrow ma’am has heard you. Middle ring. The syllabus: nothing. Not a chapter less. Far ring.
Monday night’s list, sorted: three far out, one under his hand.
What people believe instead
“Good that you are worried, beta,” said Mummy, and smiled. “It means you are doing something about it.” Dhruv did not argue. It felt true.
But look where the worry put the syllabus. In the near ring, under his hand. The syllabus is in the far ring. Worry moves nothing in any ring. Only a hand in the near ring moves anything. And the chapter, which was really there, stayed unread.
At dinner Papa said the other thing. “The school decides all of it, beta. Nothing is in our hands. You just study.” Papa was right about the syllabus. But look where he put tonight’s chapter. Far out, as if the school decided that too.
It did not. The chapter is under Dhruv’s hand whatever the school decides. The Maths day can be nudged. When everything is pushed to the far ring, there is nothing left to do but worry.
The class list
Then the rumour. If the sections were reshuffled, Sameer might land in another one. Dhruv spent a lunch break worrying about the list.
So he sorted it. The class list: far ring. Whether he and Sameer stay friends across two sections: middle ring. He can push for it, and Sameer decides too. Where he sits at lunch today: under his hand. He went and sat with Sameer.
The far ring is not the ring of things that do not matter. The syllabus matters. You can think it is too long, and say so. To Mummy. To ma’am. Sorting a worry into the far ring does not throw it away. It gives the evening back, for the chapter that is there.
And where a thing sits is this year’s picture. Not for ever.
Spot it
1
The school bus is late every day, and you are late for assembly. The bus route. Leaving the house five minutes earlier. Which ring is each in?
2
Sports day is on Friday and the sky has been grey all week. The rain. The raincoat in your bag. Which ring?
Tuesday night Dhruv drew the rings on paper and put each worry in one. Then he ran his own test. What would go wrong if I stopped thinking about the exam? Nothing that was not going wrong already. So he put the syllabus down where it lived, and opened the chapter.
Here is the move. When a worry has taken the evening, draw the rings and put it in one. If it lands far out, put it down. Pick one thing from the near ring.
This week, at home
Take one worry from this week. Draw the dot and the three rings. Which ring is it in? If it is the far ring, what is in the near ring instead?
The same rings, three costumes
On Friday it drizzled on sports day. Dhruv had not spent one minute on the sky. He pulled the raincoat out of his bag and ran. The exam, the friends and sports day are one shape. A dot, three rings, and each worry in one of them. The syllabus, the class list and the rain sat far out, and moved for nobody. The chapter, the lunch bench and the raincoat sat under his hand. The evening went where his hand could go.
Dhruv thought of Uncle Sushruta, who sorted things before touching them. Three worries that felt like one kind: are they? Sorted, the syllabus, the paper’s day and the chapter were three things in three rings. Only one needed his hand.
The name
People who study this have a name for the near ring. They call it the circle of action. Circle: the rings drawn round you. Action: what your hands can do. Everything inside the circle of action moves when you move; everything outside it moves for someone else, or for nobody.
Separate what you can move, what you can only nudge, and what you can only have opinions about. The circle of action is the near ring.
Where you will see this next
Next chapter: a wish is a picture, and a want says what it costs and what stands in the way. The rings come back in Class 12, wider.