Slow Down

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

Some of us have a tendency to rush through things. Eat too fast, drink too heartily, blunder through introductions, breeze through chapters and rush from place-to-place, even on vacations. It’s a way to cut to the chase: to get to the result in the shortest amount of time.

We know this isn’t the way. Our bodies tell us this when we eat or drink too fast, our minds tell us this when we try to remember the salient point of a book we read a year ago, and we kick ourselves when we learn about that special place we missed that was right around the corner from the spot we rushed to where you and everyone else took their Instagram picture.

Savor the moment. Slow down a beat, and maybe even another beat beyond that. Appreciate the progression of the moment for all the ripe possibility it offers. The change in the light. The gradual temperature change in a cup of tea. The last few sentences that end a chapter and set up the next. Immerse yourself in now.

There is no rushing to the future. The present is all that matters. Slow down.