SPEEDING UP BY SLOWING DOWN

If you want to increase the speed of your success in life then learn to slow down. One may argue, either you speed up or slow down, how can one speed up and slow down simultaneously. It looks like a contradiction. But often life is about reconciling opposites, finding the mid-point, the balance between two extremes.

I would like to explain two meanings of ‘slowing down’.

The first meaning of slowing down is to regularly take time to analyse, introspect and recheck our direction in life. Somehow in today's high-tech world where so much value and stress is given on speed, we many times overlook the direction of our life. As Stephen Covey, the famous author aptly put it by saying - 'The difference between a leader and manager is that, a manager is one who knows how to efficiently climb the ladder, but a leader is one who knows if the ladder is on the right wall.' Most people spend their entire life in efficiently climbing the 'so called' ladder of success only to realise that it was on the wrong wall. What an irony! That's why Socrates the great philosopher mentioned 2500 years back - 'An unexamined life is not worth living.' Just like a car needs to be serviced regularly for it to run faster, similarly we need to take time to invest in ourselves in order to gain momentum in life.

Second meaning of slowing down is to slow down the mind. If you have observed the mind, you will notice how it is constantly oscillating between past and future. The mind seems to have its own pace, it's own speed and it always seems in a sort of hurry to reach it's destination. This is called the Destination Addiction Syndrome (DAS). What is DAS? It is the belief that I will be happy as soon as I reach my destination. But in the process we forget to enjoy the journey. The foolishness of this state of mind is exposed in this beautiful poem.

First I was dying to finish high school and start college
And then I was dying to finish college and start working
And then I was dying to marry and have children
And then I was dying for my children to grow old enough so they could go to school so I could go back to work
And then I was dying to retire
And now...I am dying .... and suddenly I realised I forgot to live.

This shouldn't be the plight of our life. We need to understand that both past and future are illusions of mind, they have no place in reality. The only thing that is real is the present moment. Just see our position - the body is in present moment but our mind is either in the past or the future. No doubt we are experiencing so much stress in life, literally being ‘pulled apart’ by our mind.

The remedy for this madness of the mind is to live in the present. Only when we slow down the mind, can we actually experience life in its true form. Mind doesn't add beauty to life but takes away it's beauty. When was the last time we relished the crispness of the fresh air, looked up and appreciated the sun, moon and stars. When did we stop to actually see the beauty of a flower or a tree. In looking for big miracles we oversee the small ones happening all around us. In fact there is nothing as a small miracle. It's the nature of the mind to make even extraordinary things ordinary.

The key to success is to understand that, if we give ourselves fully to the present moment naturally the future will be the best. The future takes care of itself if we take care of the present. As it is said - Yesterday was history, tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift of God - that's why it is called present. And these gift can be accessed only by being fully present in the moment. So the next time you catch the mind racing, tell it this mantra - ‘You speed up by slowing down’.

- Achyut Gopal Das