What's The Rush????

Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.  You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.

-Dallas Willard

There is more to life than simply increasing its speed.

-Mahatma Gandhi

At the start of our year working towards mastery, we made a list of goals.  These goals are commitments that we thought through carefully.  They were actions that we personally believed would lead us closer to mastery as we travelled through our year.


So what does this lovely list of goals have to do with hurry.  I'm guessing that each one of us started this year off with a very full and busy life.  Then we add in this new list.  My list of things that I wanted to do, needed to do just keeps growing.  So what is our first human response.  We try to do more, faster, more efficiently...  It's always more, more, more...  Not only are we rushing around like crazy chickens with our heads cut off, we are dragging everyone else along with us.  Faster, more, chaos....


So here I am knee deep in my quest to get it all done.  One of my favourite things to do is read.  It is my go to place when I have a moment of quiet.  Even here though, I have lists of books to read.  I always have several books on the go.  This past week I read each of these quotes.  Ironically, they were in two separate books.  The fact that this message came up twice within the span of 24 hours was not lost on me.  The fact that both of these quotes hit me to my core was not lost on me.  The fact that I need these reminders in front of my face CONSTANTLY was not lost on me.


The past few days I have tried to slow down.  I have tried to take moments to notice life, to feed my spirit.  I have tried to be more present instead of rushing to do five more things in 30 seconds before I run out the door.  By slowing down, I have noticed opportunities that likely would have gone unnoticed in my past frenzy.  Simple things like a walk with my son, slowly and gently brushing my daughter's hair, a game of UNO with the family before bed, more hugs, more kisses...


I have tried to keep these thoughts in front of me as I have travelled through this week.  The internal struggle has been very real.  The fact that I am writing this blog post on Friday instead of Tuesday has been part of this internal conversation.  Life has been busy.  I have been on the run.  I have had opportunities where I could have thrown together a quick blog.  I have had multiple opportunities where I could have worked on this post in bits and pieces.  BUT...  I chose to slow down and not fill every second to overflowing.  I needed time to try to piece together this post in a way that is meaningful to me, to process the thoughts.  I wanted this opportunity to feed my spirit and not just be an item checked off my list.  Blog done.  Check.


This week has been all about trying to slow down.  I have challenged myself to look at the true meaning behind what I am doing and being present while I do things instead of fifty steps ahead.  I am finding this very hard.  My mind is a busy, messy place.  For today, I am trying to slow down, to embrace my messy mind and look out at the world around me and soak it in.