Nowadays time is of the essence, you have one assignment after the other. If you want to be two or more things (career-wise) you have to go to double the amount of schooling, you have to figure out the job you want as soon as you graduate college, etc.
SEE ALSO: Time Slow Down
I do not know about you but I just all want it to stop and slow down.
Lately, I have been stress to the max about my future. I have not had a time in the week to take a day and relax with no homework, with no worries about my light bill, with no worries about club/organization responsibilities.
I just want to take time to let the sunlight soak into the pores of my skin, the cool breeze sweeping across my skin brushing the heat away, giving my body balance.
Time to let my eyes focus on the green leaves coming out of hibernation from the once bitter winter, to let my ears turn in to the Blue Jays and Robins sing their song of the sun.
To take off my shoes and let the sole of my feet meet the soil of the earth, I want to slow down and enjoy all nature can give me.
I often wonder when did society get to caught up on time. Yes, You should have good time management but time focusing on work should not be 24/7 seven days a week.
We need a break, we need time to just relax re need time to recharge and improve our mental, physical, and spiritual state.
I can not remember the last time I had a shopping spree with my best friend, the time I took the time to get deeply attached to a good book or time to digest my bible and talk to God deeply, the last time I just let my thought run through my fingers onto a piece of paper. I just want it to all slow down.
I was curious and I looked up the country who has the most work hours, and guess who was number one? The United States of America with 1.353 hours per year. When you break it down that it about 12 hours per day five days a week. And sometimes that is extended to working on the weekends.
The country with the lowest hours, Italy with 960 hours per year ( on average 20 hours per week!) A typical week's work schedule is 9:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. with a lunch break and then 2:30 P.M. to 6:00 P.M.
I don't know about you, but this makes me want to move to Italy. They try to reconcile work with private life, reserving enough time for family and private interests and appreciates individual thinking and creativity and they are expected to take into account family interest.
Can the U.S go to that, can we stop focusing on money and how to make money and get work, work, work mode.
This also makes me think and look back to the colonial times, people had the chance to express every fiber of themselves without going through doctorate school, having to get a master's degree etc.
I think about George Washington. He accompanied George Fairfax as a surveyor to the unexplored wilderness of the Virginia frontier. He was commander of the Continental Army and served two terms as our first president of the United States! I think about Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein and so many more.
It also makes me think that now a says we don't have time to fail. I know that sounds pessimistic but the truth of life and being a human being is that we make mistakes, we fail because we are not perfect, but instead of looking as failing as a bad experience thinks of it as a learning experience.
Think of Thomas Edison. Throughout his lifetime he had many failed inventions like the electric vote recorder, it took him 1,000 times before he before he was successful with inventing the light bulb!
I love his reaction when a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied, "I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."
Nowadays, we want everything so perfect and done right the first time, yes we need to improve and try to get things as close to the way they are supposed to be, but first, we need to learn through our own mistakes.
So I have a challenge for you - give your self the chance to do something for yourself and take a break from the constant GO, GO, GO.
"Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast, you also miss the sense of where you are going and why." - Eddie Cantor
"Life is made up of special moments which make it worth living. There are many cherished moments that are missed due to the stress and fast pace of daily living. We must slow down and remember how precious is to be alive and to love" - Unknown
Sheetal Tadiparty
Flickr Creative Commons
