A Noteworthy Article.

• By vishwa on Health, Inspiration

• May 16, 2011

Since I speak in terms of fitness building which would require possessing a healthy mind, I would like to present you an article that tells you to decerelate the pace in your life for the right reasons. Well, if you have observed keenly you can very well see that the caption which is written beneath the name of my gym in the website reads “fitness building.” Since I am a fitness coach the title “fitness building” will be detected from a physical perspective. But all along I have spoken about a lifestyle change to tread the fitness path. It invariably suggests to possess a healthy mind, for possessing a healthy mind in a healthy body goes hand in hand.

The article which I am now going to present was sent to me a week ago by a gym client of mine, and I genuinely felt that I should share the article with you. I hope you give it a serious read, for many of us might have missed the path in the journey called LIFE.

This week’s read is about breaking free from the rat race – to unpace yourself . . .

Abraham Lincoln’s quote – “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that counts. It’s the life in your years” sums up aptly the importance of slowing down and experiencing life in the true sense.

This article looks at the need to slow down. Once you have reduced your speed, you will be able to sit back and think about what makes you happy. The very awareness of the face will make a positive difference in everything you do in future. Have you noticed you never really sat back to answer this most important question of your life? Well, it’s never too late.

It will take a lot of courage to break free from the rat-race, but unless you do so, you will remain trapped, running madly in circles at the circumference of your real self without ever getting to the beautiful core and finding out who you really are. It’s time to break free . . .

A Day In Your Life?

You get up in the morning cursing the ring of your alarm clock (what a way to start the day!). In your rush to reach the bathroom, you trip over your bed sheet and fall. With another curse, you somehow reach the toilet and before you know it, you are done with your dailies and are out into the kitchen having a standing breakfast, because you are already late and just cannot afford to eat at leisure.

Because of your behind-schedule start of the day, the entire day gets cramped. In your rush to speed up the report to be submitted to the boss, you manage to clumsily spill coffee all over your desk. You just barely manage to get the desk cleaned up when you find one page of the report missing. And guess what happened to that page? You cleaned the desk with it. That calls for another curse.

After your showdown with your boss who is obviously annoyed at your carelessness, you slump back into your cabin chair. Before you know it, you have to jump up again and rush through the city traffic all across town to meet an important client. Your mind is, however, occupied with an already delayed appointment with your doctor in the evening.

Rushing up matters with the client with lots of to be done ‘later’, you just make it to the doctor’s clinic in time. Somehow, while you await your turn, it seems like eternity before you are allowed into the doctor’s office. Jumping at your call, you are into his cabin even before he can say your name. what is the reason to visit the doctor? Hypertension, what else!

After yet another reminder from the doctor to go slow, you rush back home and change into evening wear at the speed of light. After all, your prospective buyer must already be waiting at the restaurant where you are to meet for dinner.

During dinner, your fatigued body cries out ‘enough’ but the business deals and discussions are far more important. So you go on and on about your business without the slightest hint of how the food is or sometimes even unaware of what you had ordered and are eating.

Dropping the prospect back at his hotel, you reach home close to midnight and tiptoe into your own home (the children must be asleep by now), all washed out and drained. Too tired for any romance, you tell your wife to wake you up early since you have a hard day ahead. You have just about slept a wink when the alarm literally jerks you awake and you start another day with a curse. There you go again . . .

Haven’t many of us made our life’s routine similar to the one described above? Have we ever stopped to think why we are living this so called rat-race’ way of existence? Were we given this beautiful gift of life just to make it a mad run for an unknown success?

Wake Up Before It’s Too Late

The ironic part is that a person runs around crazily so that he can make more money, get more recognition, etc. and most of the time he is making these efforts to ‘enhance’ the living standards of his dear ones. However, while doing so he becomes so involved in his addictive passion to achieve, he totally forgets the very people he was doing all this for in the first place. Before he knows it, his loved ones have been left far behind and the distance increases proportionally to his materialistic success.

Then one day when he is jolted awake by reality, it’s too late. He repents because he did not enjoy the childhood of his children. He hates himself for not having thanked his wife for the lovely food she served him day in and day out. He is ashamed that he hardly ever noticed his old parents who longed to spend a few minutes with him, their son. One minute he was there, the next minute he was gone. And now all he can do is cry without a tear and keep repining. Why did he not wake up earlier?

Dr Peale states: ‘Our generation has developed what has been termed as the green light psychology. We do our best to get through the green light at a junction (sometimes even risking our lives to just make it). If, however, the red light beats us by a second, then we feel terrible. Next time, watch the people waiting for the light to change. Notice how tense everybody’s expression is. That is one thing that is very wrong with this plague of busy-ness and unless we slow our speed, unless we take time to relist every day of our life, we would have used the precious days of our life doing non-relevant things. And in the bargain, we may miss out on what we really wanted to do in life.’

First, Reduce Your Life’s Tempo

All this speeding has had many unfortunate physical effects. It is one of the prime causes that have made high blood pressure and heart trouble so widespread. This hasty, hectic and hurrying age of ours has left the average man bewildered and totally out of breath. (If there were a business prospect on the other end, we would each beat the world’s fastest sprinters to the race, wouldn’t we?) That is the sad part. This mad rush has made man think that the chief virtue is to keep up with the flying clock without waiting to think ‘Why?’

We need to learn to reduce life’s tempo, or the breakneck race will rob us of life’s deepest meaning and happiness. It is, therefore, very necessary that in whatever walk of life one is in, one must ‘slow down’ and take time to romance his life. One must learn to live in the moment and feel the emotions of all living beings around him.

Slowing Down Helps You Focus

The moment you have unpaced yourself, you will feel much lighter and free. Then you can sit back and give life a thought. Only then will you be able to decide how you would want to spend the limited time and energy you have and what you really want to be remembered for. Then you will get your answer as to why you were born and what makes you happy about being alive.

You will realize that your soul is really not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth or power. It is hungry for meaning, for the sense that you have figured out how to live so that your life matters, so that the world will be at least a little better for your having passed through it. No doubt, hard work is one of man’s greatest boons, and a lazy man is to be awakened. But quite surely we will succeed better if we reduce the tension of the effort to reach there.

After all, what good is it anyway to succeed if one cannot enjoy life in the process?