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Slow Down or Simplify Your Life
A couple of years ago when I was in Berlin, Germany, I gave a keynote presentation titled “Mastering your Mind” at an exclusive invite-only Private Equity event. The location was beautiful – a venue tucked away in what appeared to be an unused industrial building. After my talk, one of the guests came up to me and said “I really need to slow down my life. My whole family needs to slow down. It’s just too hectic.”
I responded to him by asking “Are you driving and walking any faster than you normally do?” He looked at me a little puzzled and replied “No.” I said, “Then you don’t need to slow down but rather what you need to do is simplify. Life is not going any faster for you than it was before. It may be more full of things you’ve taken on but definitely not going any faster. The earth as far as I know is still spinning at the same rate. We still have 24-hours in a day…not a second more or less.”
The fact that you have taken on a lot more responsibilities or commitments in life gives you the impression that you are going faster when in essence you are not. You have more things going on so you spend less time with each thing and you switch from one thing to another frequently in hopes of getting it all done because you can’t concentrate on one thing long enough to actually bring it to completion. All this tells you then that you are going too fast and you need to slow down.
But the fact is you are not going any faster. You are not peeing any faster. You are not breathing faster all day. You are not sleeping faster.
So, don’t say slow down. Say simplify instead. Say “I need to simplify my life. I need to do fewer things each day. I need to be doing things that are aligned with my priorities in life and stay focused on just doing these things because these things are what is truly important to me.”
Simplify! Simplify! Simplify!
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Anger is not a driving force
Last week I shared my thoughts on why we should choose love over anger. Today I wanted to share with you what happens when we choose anger instead. When we allow awareness to repeatedly go to the angry area of the mind we strengthen this area of the mind. Many of you have heard me…
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Choose love over anger. Always.
Emotions such as fear, sadness, anger, and more are quite common these days. It’s ok and natural to experience them but we can choose if we want to live with these emotions or not. Making the choice if we want to remain in these areas of the mind for an extended period of time is…
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Don’t “Just be”
So much of today’s mindfulness and yoga teachings teach about simply being and not striving. “Just be” is the proclamation. And striving is often looked at as a negative thing. When you just be you remain where you are. And essentially don’t make progress. Striving is good. Striving is needed o...
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Treat Everyone the Same
As residents of this planet we have so much to learn about treating everyone the same. In the Hindu faith, one of the dominant fundamental teachings is seeing God in all as its philosophy states that God is in all things. Sadly, racism like God is all-pervasive. And ignorance, like God, is all-p...
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The Power of Thought
Everything begins in the mental plane first before it manifests in the physical plane. You think to yourself first, “I would like some ice cream,” then you get up and get yourself some ice cream. But it began in your mind with a thought. Each thought has a picture, sound, and color associated wi...
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Too busy or misguided priorities?
Someone once asked me, “What if we don’t have time to spend in reflection in the morning?” My response was, “Everybody has time. The question is what are you willing to make time for?” At the end of the day, it comes down to priorities. What’s important in your life? I’m sure many people have&hel...
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