Very recently I spent a couple of days feeling quite agitated. When I finally sat down to meditate, I had the feeling that if you took a picture of me, the still would look blurry. It felt as if all of the cells in my body were in a hurry. Someone had pushed the play button, and the pause button wasn’t anywhere in sight. A hurry towards what I am not sure, because if I hurry myself out of this moment mentally (where life’s nectar is found), I am hurrying towards the future, and what lies there, eventually, inevitably, is death. So what is it that I am hurrying towards, or hurrying from?
My agitation was definitely arising from this inane sense of needing to hurry from one life activity to the next, and therefore I wasn’t able to enjoy anything. When I get like this, agitated, I definitely don’t keep it to myself. For some reason I feel the need to share it with my husband. And that is not fair to him.
It is difficult in the world in which we live today (at least in this country), not to feel hurried. I observe myself when I get in my car and drive out into five o’clock traffic, getting caught up in this river, this torrent of collective hurried velocities. Next thing I know I am clutching my steering wheel, white knuckled, doing my best to observe an anxiety that is beginning to arise, searching frantically for an eddy.
The place I notice it the most is the hospital where I work. You would think that we want to create an atmosphere of calm and healing, but the pace that nurses and other healthcare workers are pressed to keep (and the stress that goes along with it), has caused at least two of my coworkers to have heart rhythm abnormalities. They are certain, beyond any suspicion of doubt, that it is the stress of their chosen profession that has caused their heart problems. It seems that people are caught up in the torrent there, being propelled along by this fast-paced deluge, absolutely unaware that they are even in it.
When I was finally able to see clearly that it was this sense of needing to hurry that was causing my agitation, and therefore my suffering (and consequently a dose of suffering to the man I love), when it became crystal clear and I felt what it was doing to my body, I was able to let go of it. And by the end of that meditation, I was back to the present, and feeling ooey-gooey-yummy towards the man I love.
check out this ted speaker on slowing down
October 16, 2008 at 4:48 pm
This resonates. The frantic pace is killing us…keeping us from enjoying the nectar of our lives and you describe it well here.
Check out this Ted speaker…who celebrates slowness!
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/carl_honore_praises_slowness.html
October 17, 2008 at 12:24 am
This was so perfect to read right now. I just got home from sitting with a friend and her husbad. She is in hospice care and we talked about the gift they are given to have time to say good bye. The now is all we have and we need to keep reminding ourselves. Everyday is precious.
October 17, 2008 at 12:41 am
Wow Steff. That is big. I am glad you could be there for them. And in a way, its kind of a gift for you to be able to be there. It’s really curious that we usually don’t realize what a gift the present moment is until life throws us a major curve ball- be it death, disability, or whatever. Thanks for sharing Steff.