Time is a vanishing asset. You can spend it, waste it, or give it. I am learning how to take it.
I take time to heal, to rest, and to replenish.
I seek to become Time Wealthy.
My path to treat time differently began with learning to meditate.
Everyone talks about meditation like it is a wonder drug.
You feel like you are missing something if you don’t meditate.
When I first felt that pressure, I remember another part of me thinking, “meditating doesn’t seem like a good idea.” It didn’t feel smart to sit still and wait for my thoughts to come circling. That just didn’t feel safe!
Eventually, my wife turned me onto it. Well, sort of. She lit the fuse but I was resistant at first.
When she burst in the door all excited about this class that she was taking, telling me that I needed to sign up too, I immediately turned into a three year old: “You can’t tell me what to do!”
So I waited until it was MY idea.
A few months later, I went to a class to learn about mindfulness meditation.
I thought I would be a natural. There would be many failed attempts in those eight weeks. I didn’t expect to learn that I was so bad at it.
I just couldn’t catch on. I was secretly sure that I was the worst meditator in the history of the world.
But I did see the value. Everything in my life was go, go go. I needed some way to slow down. Meditation could offer a pause button.
The mindfulness class showed me the value of building breaks into my busy days. I saw that I could exploit those gaps to gain power over the impossible choices that ruled my life. With that power, I could choose to live my life more on purpose.
Yet I couldn’t catch on to meditating. I was unable to create a steady habit. I was missing something.
I didn’t even realize what I needed.
I thought I was missing the key to building a steady habit. But that goal led me to work harder, not to slow down.
After a five year search, I found something I didn’t expect. Instead of doing more, I learned how to do LESS.
The problem: I don’t value rest. I am constantly moving.
Even when I am sitting still, my mind is moving. I am going … somewhere. I know that I just can’t stay here.
And that was the problem. When I finally found a style of meditation that provided a space to rest and replenish, I was hooked.
I converted the old saying, “Don’t just sit there. Do something!” into “Don’t just do something. Sit there!”
photo credit: Sander Sammy/Unsplash
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