Choices: 15 minutes at a time
Recently, I have been worrying about the future. I am long past dwelling on the past, but still I feel inferior to my potential. Worry is a killer, a stress maker. I had a lot of it lately. I’ve just read that the more one lives in the the present, the better one masters life and continues growing as a spiritual being . I’ve lost that somehow recently. I used to live 15 minutes at the time*, for practical purposes that is about the closest one can go about daily things without full meditative awarness. You have to have you priorities straight, your values set to know what is right thing to do at the moment. That takes time to develop, you can learn from smarter parents, or peers, or from your own mistakes if nobody around you fits the profile of the mentor . Let me explain: In your 15 minutes intervals you ask yourself what am I doing to enhance my life . That can be anything:
- studying for the celebral growth
- watching an educational program on TV for the same reason
- eating food for health
- exercising for strenght and good mental attitude
- attending school for the diploma (even if you learn nothing)
- deciding to go sleep to replenish the energy, rest is essential
- playing with the baby for her sake
- spend time with family and friends What you don’t want is to waste time, waste your life. When you vegetate in front of TV watching a really bad Sci-Fi show, or worse, a soap opera, you just waste the time. You don’t rest, you don’t get stronger, you grow weaker. I noticed that if you put this practice to life, you don’t worry about the past and the future because you are already doing the best you can . Another miracle is that sooner than later you end up achieving more that you have dreamed at the begining and the achievment feels effortless, because you did not struggle to reach it. You just lived your life one-fifteen minute moment at the time. If you side-track from the practice bad things happen, you get depressed, discouraged, life it an unbearable weight that you cannot handle, you may end up doing stupid things that you will be paying for a long time to come. Finally, ending on the buddhist note, nothing is bad, nothing is good, things just are in their own suchness. You don’t make good, or bad, decisions to regret in the future. You can eat your rice with a fork, a hand, or a chopsticks – all methods are equally good and will serve the purpose. Question is which one will you choose at this moment? You should not get attached to any particular one . If you dine in Japan; learn the chopsticks, in India; a hand, etc. Whole life is full of choices. Be aware.
- the fifteen minute idea is not mine original, like most of our thoughts, I’ve read about it in the past, maybe in Dale Carnegie books. Always learning from, and repeating after the smarter before us.