Life is a race unless we choose to rest. Life seems to be high speed until we choose to pause.
A few days back I was reminded of this story of the tortoise and hare, where the hare which was otherwise known for speed chose to rest and lost the race to the tortoise, who otherwise was slow.
I do not see this anymore as a win-lose story. But story of choices that we choose to make while on a journey. The hare might have lost the game of reaching first to the destination but there are fair chances of it gaining that restorative and regenerative power from rest to continue participating in more such races and progressing in life, not necessarily losing or winning every time.
The tortoise’ choice of moving slow at its natural speed might have fetched him the enjoyment and appreciation of the landscape that it had encountered during the journey.
While the desire may be to be reach the destination, but the real beauty, happiness, fulfilment, and growth lies in the journey. Its not the outcome but the process that determines progress! In this story, both the hare and the tortoise might have experienced that fulfilment in their own ways.
When was the last time you took a pause? These words ‘rest’ and ‘pause’ don’t really have a space in our culture, a culture which is so much rooted in the concept of ‘workism’ defined by all that we do and the number of hours we put in our doings. This incessant DOING becomes so overwhelming that we forget that we are not machines. We forget that we are human BEINGS and we can just be!
We can just unplug and drop the need of becoming and be who we are.
Almost everything including machines start working after they are unplugged for a while! They have a RESET button too.
The concept of REST and PAUSE is rooted in the present, here and now.
When we are grounded in present, similar to our state of as-is we see things as-is. And this ability of seeing things as-is opens doorways to what can be. More we are in the as-is, more we build the muscles to imagine what can be and get invited to the world of possibilities and probabilities.
With rest comes stillness, with stillness comes depth. And depth in anything we do not only makes our work rich but also gives us a sweet fulfilment within.
No wonder, when we calm down and feel rested, we feel rejuvenated, relaxed and spring back more productive.
And sometimes, it is just in this pause when magical ideas, thoughts are born!
After all Not all good things in life require doing 🙂
Let’s Pause, Breathe and Just be!
