We live in a culture that celebrates being busy under the guise of being productive. We rush. We cheat ourselves from the value of the moment.
We angle to find just the right vector to move forward in order to achieve the quickest solution. We hack. We undermine our path to mastery by pushing it farther away.
We try to be too many things to too many others. We multitask. We elect to do many things poorly instead of doing one thing well at the expense of honing our focus, our skill.
If life is a journey and not the destination why are we hacking the journey? We speed through our morning showers, our breakfasts, the limited time with our family. We wolf down our lunches sometimes while continuing to work. We rush through the important things.
We’re slow to accept invitations and quick to cancel. We’re quick to react and slow to respond. We’re quick to judge and slow to forgive.
What do we do about it? Like the monk preparing the monastery’s food, move slower and deliberate. Inspect every delicate slice, enjoy the sense of placing every morsel, live in the dance of simply pouring tea. Nothing extravagant or fancy. Simple, intentional, present.
Instead if being busy, be valuable.
“People intoxicate themselves with work so they don’t see who they really are.” – Aldous Huxley
Find out who you really are. If you don’t like what you see change it then look again. Repeat until satisfied.
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This post was previously published on Medium.com.
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