As we allow more space and reduce the pace, somehow, we invite grace.

An affluent industrialist said to the Master, “What do you do for a
profession?”
“Nothing,” said the Master.
The industrialist laughed scornfully. “Isn’t that laziness?”
“Heavens no. Laziness is mostly the vice of very active people.”
Later the master said to his disciples, “Do nothing and all things will be
done through you. Doing nothing really takes a lot of doing (and being). Try it!”
– Anthony de Mello, SJ, One Minute Wisdom

MORSEL: If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live. –Lin Yutang

All my life one of my struggles had been to be action-oriented. I am a man of ideas which would often not get implemented. Wonderful ideas which can change people’s lives, even impact the planet! I am slowly and surely coming to the ‘realisation’ however that my wanting to hurry up actually slows me down. The busy-ness of the mind exhausts. And running around like a plucked chicken only tires the body. But that is precisely the malaise of the world I believe. Effectiveness does not come from haste. Greatness does not come from blind speed.

There is a Zen saying, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.” (Shunryu Suzuki). And some Jewish wisdom ‘When there is too much, something is missing.’ What am I driving at? Where is all this leading?

Well, the very first aspect about time is that it is non-linear. Haven’t we all experienced that there are many times we get more accomplished in a day than we have in a week? How come? There is a certain flow, a vital energy that we are a part of that enables a huge achievement in a small time. More often than not we do not recognize this and continue to experience and live as if time were a linear reality. Not seeing that More is Less and Less is More.

I was recently reading a lovely book called Momo by Michael Ende who eloquently brings out this painful reality in a fable. We all know that cliché that we have become slaves of time. We want to earn more so that we can have more and be more comfortable. Not recognizing that each day we have less and less time to really enjoy those ‘comforts’. Working late hours has now become a way of life which we don’t even question.

Another interesting book, Your Money or Your Life brilliantly shares a concrete way for us to reclaim time and hence get back our life. The authors say that we think we are making a living but often we are making a dying! That unless we recognize ‘enoughness’, we end up spending inordinate amounts of time which does not at all bring us fulfilment.

Ricardo Semler (better known for his book Maverick) in his recent book with a title that’s like a wink, The Seven Day Weekend…Finding The Elusive Work-Life Balance talks of his successful experiment of having created and sustained and grown a group of companies across the world under the Semco banner. His organization has become a case study for many companies and universities across the planet.

The second nuance is that rarely do we separate the vital from the trivial. Blaise Pascal said, “The last thing we know is what to put first.” In program after program when I ask people about how much percentage of their time they spend in the second quadrant (Important but not urgent) v/s the others, it is an abysmal 10-15 per cent  on an average. To separate the Vital from the Trivial, we need time and space but who has that time, let alone space?

So, how do we navigate these habitual patterns which keep us locked in the prison of time? What at the deepest level are the answers to this seemingly intractable dilemma? Answers to such questions are never easy though they may appear simple.

To be continued..

Kiran Gulrajani is the founder of CoEvolve, an ecosystem of facilitators (coaches, social entrepreneurs & leaders in business, education, wellness and community). Since 1996 he has been co-creating this community and contributing to developing leaders across diverse sectors. He is on the Advisory Board of Edumedia and affiliated with the Conscious Capitalism Institute. He enjoys writing (www.CoEvolveWithKiran.wordpress.com). His flagship program, ‘Tao of Facilitation’ has touched the lives of thousands deeply. He is inspired by Lao Tsu, Ramana Maharshi and J.Krishnamurti.  His work integrates the richness of eastern and western wisdom. He is a B.Tech from IITB Bombay and MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur. Previously worked with HCL Ltd and ITC Ltd. He enjoys enabling people to discover the magnificence hidden within.