When one eats these days, one does so in haste. It is difficult to remain mindful when you are in haste. These days our lives move so fast around us that we are not/ cannot be mindful of what is around us or what is going on.
Every thing that is in our lives these days has to do with haste. And all we want is to reach our retirement. So basically we are hurrying up to wait. LOL. In not being mindful and patient, are we teaching ourselves "bad habits"? Its hard to think about since everything in our lives that we think of is NOW, even though were not thinking NOW, were thinking about whats next. And if your thinking about whats next then your not being mindful.
Example!! I grabbed a little bag of Fruit Snacks. I love those darn things. So I put one in my mouth, chewed about three times and then swallowed the bite. Then I thought, "Wow! That was quick!" I looked down to see the bag open in my left hand and the next snack ready in my right. When I was chewing the first snack I was not thinking about the tasty snack as I chewed it or exploring its flavor, no I was thinking about the next snack in my right hand and past that I was thinking about the rest of the snacks in the bag. I was not in the NOW. I was thinking ahead. I was living in haste. I was not being mindful.
I notice this elsewhere too. When I am at work, my bosses want everything done as fast as possible. And when that happens the quality of our work suffers greatly. This bothers me because "I see it". The bosses don't see it until there is a bottom line or a complaint. Then we have to do the work again. Could we not get more done if we did the job right the first time with mindfulness? The best that I can do in that situation is to be as mindful as I can of my job and hope to be able to show that "Haste makes Waste" to put a corny ring to it.
So with that said. I leave you with this. Slow down and be mindful of our life. Learn the difference between NOW, NEXT and THEN and understand why mindfulness should come first. Be patient and take the time to think about what you are doing, what you are experiencing and how you feel about it.
Well said. We live in a society where things are constantly claiming to be better, bigger, brighter, tougher, faster, everything is a competition and getting left behind feels like losing. Honestly, I think the ideals of our society the things that forced our ancestors to strive to be the best have been met. We have gone from advancement to stagnation. We no longer have to work hard to survive, we just work hard to have extra, the basics are given to those who aren't willing to work for them. The rest is esoteric. People once had to work hard just to put food on the table, now they work hard to have more money, more stuff. Money breeds greed and greed can lead to all kinds of evil. We have lost our values because life is easy. In making it easy we have made it hard to actually live. We weren't blessed with these big brains so that we could sit on a couch and stare at a box flashing colored light and blaring sound all day, we are intelligent so that we can appreciate the fact that we are alive. At least that's how I see it, if you can't stop and smell the roses or watch the sunset once in a while, then what's the point? Why not be an ant or a squirrel? Or some other beast blundering through existence, many of us are just that, we waste our time, and our intelligence. We are lazy. It's not our fault directly, we were taught to do these things, by design or mistake, it doesn't really matter which. The point is you are here, and you aren't here for very long, so you might as well enjoy it while you can. Ok, I'm done rambling madly, what I want to say is you're right. It's too bad we all don't see he world this way, it's too bad that so many are blind. Here's to open eyes, hearts and minds. Cheers bro, may the journey ahead treat you well.
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