"Don't you worry and don't you hurry".
I know that phrase by heart,
and if all the other music should perish out of the world
it would still sing to me.
(Mark Twain)
Precious
Your life constitutes a one-way journey from birth to
death.
The beauty of life lies in its fleeting nature.
In Japan, the
cherry blossom symbolises the poignant
realisation that we will bloom for only a short time.
Our mortality should not be ignored.
Rather than pine for more life, be inspired to use what you have, to live it
well.
If you consider your life to be passing every day, do you
really want to waste it watching television each night?
If you are idle and bored, 'killing time' - ask yourself why?
Every moment takes you closer to the end.
Make those precious minutes count for something meaningful.
When you die, will you have regrets?
Why rush?
People spend their whole life just
rushing.
They hurry from place to place, their lives filled with inane activities.
The necessity of ceaseless activity suggests a deep psychological
disturbance in the consciousness of humanity.
Can people just sit down and
relax?
Can they unwind?
If your life takes you minute-by-minute closer to death, why hurry?
Slow down time
When you have nothing to do,
time
seems to last forever.
Imagine being in a waiting room.
Time crawls.
Tai chi and
taoism advocate plodding through life,
stopping to
look around, to notice things.
The world is magnificent.
But unless you slow
right down, you'll never see it.
Dithering
Hurrying is a form of dithering. Your mind is divided between
concerns.
Dithering weakens your ability to act.
Imagine that your only concern in the world is to sit on the sofa reading
a book?
You sit, you read. You are complete. Nothing else interests or concerns you.
Nothing else needs doing.
The experience is without distraction or complexity. You read. Nothing more.
There is no stress, no anxiety. Why? Because you have nothing else to
do but read.
As soon as you add a second concern, your mind starts to plan and
prioritise, allocate time...
The more concerns you introduce, the greater the number of variables. The
greater the distraction.
Mistakes happen. You forget things.
A divided mind is not
whole. It flits between here and there,
this and that. This is dithering.
Indecisiveness.
Tai chi form solves dithering by flowing smoothly from one moment to
the next without pause, doubt or hesitation.
Page created 11 January 1999