Something to think about: Everyone knows how to pour tea, everyone knows how to drink tea but not everyone knows how to pour and drink tea mindfully. According to Vietnamese author and Buddhist Monk Thick Nhat Hahn we’ve evolved into a nation of people that find strength in running away from the here and now. Nearly every step taken is driven by habit energy.
Guilty!
Master Harris patiently convinced his students of martial arts that habits require thirty days to generate a reason to stay. This is why you constantly see sharp dressed kickers and punchers doing the same routine over and over again. Through these methods of discipline the outside eye that reaches in for a visit because breaking boards and bricks look ever so cool end up leaving the way of life because the art of mindfulness isn’t invited to the pages they write.
We want to lose weight now. Not next week or a month. Get this stuff off me now! We want to write books now. We want unforgettable Hollywood movies to constantly inspire and influence and every song and conversation on the radio better be good or Lord help me I’ll hit the button.
Three days of winter in the Carolina’s and easily spotted are the go getters that waste more time and energy chasing habits then they do making a difference. I used to think only old people are worthy of embracing change. The young of the world are created to make mistakes and eventually the callus from their hourly falls become thick enough to convince the soon to be old that being so daring is for a different time and age.
An old man isn’t a wise man…a wise person is he or she that isn't afraid to teach from experience.
Be an outsider today and take notes. Look at what you do at work and at home through the eyes of a passerby and see if you can identify your source of habit energy.
Constantly I’m told by visitors how hard they’re trying to revamp their love for life but trip immediately because those around them aren’t willing to let them grow. I get it! Who wants to live in the present? I’m so embarrassed by our performance that I’d pass on the opportunity to give a free tour of this nation to my Grandparents.
So what do we do? Live in fantasy, the past, future and whatever else Disney is willing to sell in 3D.
Habit energy is amazingly strong. It consumes your waking hours, at work give my life away moments and the minutes and seconds you assume you have when finally back home in front of 30 Rock and The Office. Forget trying to lose the weight around your waist and above your elbows and begin the process of heaving out the excess poundage of habit energy.
You cannot be happy with a beautiful body. Freeing yourself from habit energy transforms your methods of living into moments worth cherishing.
I am addicted to radio and the performance of it. I will do anything to be here. Elvis Presley once told Wolfman Jack that he hated him because Wolfman had a place to perform every night while Elvis had to hire people to find his stage. There is no high like a radio high and why the government hasn’t made it illegal to sniff, snort and swallow is beyond me.
Then an outsider says to me yesterday, “You radio people have it easy compared to the real world. There’s nothing like an extremely busy in the office rush. There are men and women who crave trucking, baking, fixing bowling equipment and delivering mail. There is no AA for job addiction and the way bosses treat their employees these days the average person barely has insurance to cover the damages leaders have created.”
Habit energy…why do you work? Is it truly to live a better life than those before you? Deep inside this recession created by Wall Street, Housing and Banking greed; are you getting the daily opportunity to do what you want or are you following the bunny trail carefully measuring out each step as if you're doing the Electric Slide or Macarena?
Because we lack mindfulness (living in the present) we allow ourselves to be carried away by a desire to have success. It pushes you everyday to the point of becoming a seriously out of control habit. While sipping on tea do you savor the scent that paints the invisible air? Does the flavor electrify your imagination by way of enticing you to purify your imagination by allowing it to give birth to peace of mind rather than tomorrows work day fears?
Thick Nhat Hahn explains, “Even when the tea is in our mouth we aren’t conscious of it. We’re drinking the project, we’re drinking our problems.”
The past is already gone, the future is not yet here; what if you taught yourself to find focus in the present? You truly are missing an appointment with life.
I will always believe in you first…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
No comments:
Post a Comment