“Taking your time is from God and rushing is from the Devil”
This quote struck me as the Achilles heel of how our society is structured today. Rushing to complete tasks and multi-tasking are parts of everyday life on different levels. Reading emails while completing work, reading texts while completing assignments, checking social media while watching TV, etc.
Yet, as rushed as our society has become, we as individuals still seek a sustenance only found in taking time to ourselves. In other words, we can’t process certain levels of intellectual or emotional information very quickly at times. On top of that, we feel pressured to rush our souls into positions based on what we see others post on social media because our natural inclination is to believe their social reality is their full reality.
Our sustenance is reflection. And reflection takes time. There’s a quote, “Everything is written, just keep reading.” Reflection gives you time to understand your life that you’re reading. I think everyone has read a page of a book in their life and had no idea what they just read (I do that a lot and then have to reread the page). Similarly, you can go through life in the same way. What’s difficult about reflection is your mind’s natural inclination to draw an enormous gap between where you perceive yourself to be and where you want to be. We are really hard on ourselves and we shouldn’t be. Once our mind is weighed down by this, we stop reflecting and fill our time with something else.
So what to do?
Firstly, I think we need to realize that everyone’s social presence is a highlight real. Internalizing that will help us find where we truly want to be rather than where we think we want to be based on everyone else’s “perfect” reality.
Secondly, realize that everything is truly written. We are following a script which means the gap I mentioned before doesn’t actually exist. We are where we are supposed to be at any given moment and the more we reflect, the more the words on the pages are going to make sense. The more they make sense, the more we understand about our own lives. Understanding what happens in our life is one of the best ways to find peace in ones heart.
Lastly, reflect on the good before the bad. There is a bunch of stuff we can improve on but there is a bunch of good we have done too. The order by which you reflect upon those things really makes a big difference. PEMDAS
Slow your life down, reflect, and make sense of the elements.
Khana for Sochna 