Are you permanently short of time?

By Michel Danielson

Are you desperate? Are you permanently short of time? Are you always in such a terrible hurry but still it seems that you are always late? You just can’t accomplish everything you want to do?

Are you quite overwhelmed by mounts of tasks you have to complete? Do you need more minutes in hours, more hours in day, more days in week, more weeks in month?

Hard trouble, isn’t it? I don’t think so. Stop and think a little, before sink into self-pity and depression. Maybe you have much more time than you realize? Much more than you can spend? Much more than you can even support?

Is it possible? You don’t believe it. It’s some joke, you think. No, it isn’t joke. And it is possible.

How?
Let’s see.

As the first, consider how actually you waste your precious always missing time. And you waste it amply. How much of your time you throw away because of TV? Or just surfing the net, without any serious cause? How much of your time you lose with people you don’t care for?

And what is with time you just try to kill by all means, because you don’t know what to do with yourself?

Also, consider your obligations. Which of them are really necessary? Which of them really contribute to your prosperity, your well-fare, your well-being, your happiness? And which of them are only a tribute to your vanity? Believe me, vanity is monstrous, merciless time consumer, cruel time killer. What do you do only to prove yourself or to demonstrate something to somebody?

We squander much time and much energy futilely trying to satisfy our vanity. It is the task impossible to achieve. Vanity is insatiable. It devours everything.

In fact, we are not short of time. We are short in wisdom. We don’t know how to manage our time, because we don’t know how to arrange our life, how to separate what is really important from what is unessential. We don’t need more time. We need different life approach.

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Are you tired? Are you weary without any special reason, without any particular cause? Not because of heavy work, for example. Just tired, of life, maybe?

Are you more than tired? Are you literally exhausted? And you don’t understand why? You don’t comprehend what happens to you. You simply feel you carry some huge, insupportable burden. That burden crushes you, you stager under it. But what is your burden, what is its nature? Where it comes from?

What do you think? Is it your job fatigue comes from? Your family, your friends? Circumstances you live into? All the background of your life? Who is or what is to blame?

Stop. We are on the wrong way whenever we are looking for culprits. Certainly, your job could be pressing, demanding, your family difficult, your friends boring. Certainly, circumstances could be hard. But, there is still something more. You feel it, but you can’t catch it. There is something that slips away. What is it?

You really don’t know what tires, what exhausts you? Or you don’t want to know? You have an inclining of it, but you refuse to accept your presentiment.

It’s vain to deny. Your burden is in you. That’s why it is always with you. That’s why it never leaves you.

You are tired of the role you have imposed to yourself and you continue to play it every day and all the day long. You are not yourself and that is the key cause of your huge fatigue. You are under the pressure of your role. You try to perform it as good as possible. You invest enormous effort to excel in you imposed role. It’s very tough, exhausting task.

That’s why it is sometimes so hard to you to wake up in the morning. Go to the stage again, what a toil. Unconsciously you refuse your grind and you suppress your refusal. That’s why you are so anxious.

You are tired of life because you are tired of your role. You are tired of absurdity to be someone else. You are so exhausted because you are not yourself. It’s the beginning and the end of your distress.

How to calm our heart

What do we need? I mean, really need? What do we ask for? I mean, really ask? What is more important than money, than power, than success? What is our deepest desire?

I heard many answers. We need health, of course. We need love, certainly. We need circumstances to realize our potentials and our abilities, positively.

But, what we need above all? It’s peace in the heart.

We can have a lot of things, we can achieve a lot of goals but without peace in the heart, we have nothing, we did nothing.

Without the peaceful heart the life is somber, empty, frightening. How to enjoy anything with disturbed heart? It’s impossible.

How to get a peaceful heart? The answer is in another question - where is the root of our disturbances? What makes us upset, anxious?

I heard many answers again. Some of them were quite useless, quite sterile, because they shift responsibility on another people or outer events. Some were rather good, but not sufficient. My heart was troubled and I wasn’t satisfied.

I sought for answer myself. I thought and thought in the bad, in the car, in the stroll. What is the cause? How to find inner calm?

I discovered one afternoon. It was a hot, stuffy, summer afternoon. The air was heavy, wet, stale. It was dead calm, without a whiff of wind of freshness. I sweated, I suffocated. I desperately wished to be somewhere else. My mind desperately tried to transfer me on some cool place but my body didn’t move. I suffered not only from heat but also from my helplessness.

Then I understood. We are caught between our real situation and wanted conditions. We are caught between our possibilities and our wishes, between the person we are and the imagined person we would to be. That conflict brings anxiety in our heart. That’s our tragedy.

Harmonize wishes and possibilities, what a task! The most important life task. Maybe only one that really matters.

To calm our heart we have to accept us as we are. Nothing more, nothing less.

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Why be disappointed?

Do we need it? No, we don’t. Life is more agreeable, more beautiful without disappointments.
Of course, you agree with me. Sounds nice, but… you are not quite sure if it is possible. You suspiciously shake your head.

What is the problem? Let me know.

I guess what you mean – but it happens, independently of our will.

You think on unreliable people, you think on unfavorable circumstances. You think on hopes that melt like snow on the sun. You think on all these ugly things and events that occur but don’t depend on us.

One is disillusioned every day, every hour, every minute. That’s undeniably. Disillusioned, remember that word. It’s of great importance. It’s the key.

You are right – there are many unpleasant experiences in our lives. And you are wrong - we are not as helpless in front of disappointments as it looks like.

What is disappointment? It’s the gap between our expectations and reality. Don’t forget that. Often we can’t change reality, but we always can change our expectations.
Our satisfaction is more based on our attitude then on the outer world.

Let me tell you something about me.

I’m seldom disappointed in people. And I don’t meet different people than you.

I’m seldom disappointed in events or circumstances. And I live in the same world as you.

Also, the most important, I’m seldom disappointed in me. And I’m not better than you.

How it could be? Where is the point?

Solution is simple, even very simple. But, I admit, it’s not easy to find, not easy to achieve. Sometimes is hardest to discover the simplest points. We are often looking everywhere for the thing that lies before our eyes. As it is too close to be seen. Strange phenomenon, isn’t it?

What is the matter? Where is the secret? There isn’t any secret, there isn’t any mystery. As I already told, solution is very simple.

The key point is - I don’t expect much.

I don’t expect much of people. I don’t request supermen and superwomen to be friend or to work with. I accept them just as they are, including all their virtues and imperfections, capabilities and limitations. And I respect them as they are. We are all just people, not gods.

When it nevertheless happens to me to be disappointed with somebody, it’s my fault, not his or her. Nobody is obliged to be what I want instead what he or she is. People are not obliged to adapt to my whishes, to meet my expectations. Quite opposite, I’m obliged to respect what they are.

For the same reason, I’m seldom disappointed with circumstances and events. Every morning when I wake up I tell me: “Don’t be silly. The world goes by its way. You don’t govern it. What will happen, will happen regardless of what you wish to be or not to be.”

I also don’t expect too much of me. I’m what I’m and I can what I can. No more, no less. That’s why I’m seldom angry with me.

Let’s return on the word disillusioned. It implies to have illusions. Greater our illusions are, greater are our disappointments.

To live without disappointments means to live without illusions.

Less expectation, more satisfaction, that’s all.

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I’m fine. You wonder why? You have many questions to put? How it could be? What happened to me?

Have I got a lot of money? Have I got promotion? Have I got new house? Have I got new car? Have I got new, gorgeous girl? Or new TV? Have I become very popular among acquaintances and colleagues? Have I become even famous in the entire town, even in the entire country?

Nothing of that, but I’m still fine. It’s hardly to believe?

In these days it seems odd to be fine. We live in morose age. We are used to be anxious, depressed. To be just fine is almost as violation of some rule. We feel even guilty for it, as some delinquent or sinner.

It seems impossible to be happy without some special, extraordinary, huge reason. Wrong, disastrous belief that destroys our lives.

We don’t need any special reason to be fine. Quite opposite to usual conviction, it’s natural to be happy, to be joyful, to be glad. It’s odd to be morose, somber, depressed as many of us.

What we have to do to be fine? What we have to achieve? Nothing especially. It’s enough to accept life as it is. It’s enough to accept oneself as we are. It’s enough to learn to enjoy in small, everyday things.

I learned it. I learned to enjoy in breathing, in strolling, in biking, in swimming, in talking with people, in playing with children. I learned to enjoy in music, in pictures, in books. I learned to enjoy in the reflection of the sun, in the amazing shapes of clouds, in some casual smile catch in passage. I learned to also smile without any particular cause. Just like that.

To be fine is not an achievement, it’s the state of our being. We try to achieve too many things, but we neglect ourselves. That’s why we turn our lives into the insupportable toil. That’s why we are so gloomy.

It’s not hard to be fine. Just be what you are, nothing less and nothing more.

We don’t need a lot of money, we don’t need a lot of things, we don’t need popularity, we don’t need social or professional position, we don’t need reputation. We need us.

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Do you have a nasty boss? Some fanatical faultfinder, obsessive hair-splitter? Some slave driver? Someone with little knowledge, miserable organization skills, but despotic, peevish, envious and fussy? Someone who finds pleasure to bully his subordinates?

Troublesome, very unpleasant situation, of course. But, why permit to ruin your personal and professional life? If you can’t change job or boss, find the ridiculous sides of him or her. And laugh on them. Laugh as much, laugh as often as you can. Laugh with colleagues, with family, with friends. Laugh when you are alone. Enjoy in laughing.

Laugh is healthy, physically and mentally. Laugh relieves of strain, laugh liberates of fear. Laugh makes you more relax and more self-confident.

Laugh is the best self-defense. And mighty weapon.

When your nasty boss becomes aware of your increased aplomb, he will retreat. All bullies are cowards. Their power is in your fright.

When your boss smells that he is ridiculous in your eyes, it’s his of her turn to be scared. Terror of jeer is amongst the greatest horrors.

Teach to find ridiculous sides of your nasty boss. Teach to observe, not to despair. Not only in this specific situation, but in every occasion of your life. It will save you many troubles.

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Do you believe you have many troubles?

Such as: … And: … And: …Or: … And also: …

Yes, I let you to finish. Troubles are yours, not mine. You know them, not I.

Maybe you even find difficult to list? Maybe you think your troubles are countless? And especially heavy? So heavy that you stagger under their burden? It’ impossible to bear?

Are you proud of your troubles? Why not? Huge problems are not for everybody. They are for few people only. Very important ones. As, of course, you are.

Bravo! Interesting, amazing point of view. But dangerous. Once, it was mine, also. I hardly survived it.

Or you are afraid of your troubles? Or you are tired? Depressed? I was. So afraid, so tired, so depressed.

But, do you really know your troubles? I mean real ones?

Stupid, superfluous question? Your problems are always with you. They are your close, intimate, inseparable companion. You live with them, you love with them, you eat with them, you work with them, you sleep with them, you entertain with them. Or can’t live, love, eat, work, sleep, entertain because of them. How you wouldn’t know them? Yet, you probably don’t.

It looks strange, I admit. But it can be true. The truth is often stranger than fiction, because we get used to consider the fiction as the truth.

I also thought I knew my problems very well. It was my great delusion. I was simply to blind to understand what is going on with me. I didn’t realize what I was doing.

However, I diligently produced my plights, often from nothing or almost nothing. I spread them everywhere. I found them on every corner. I simply invented troubles or badly exaggerated some normal, everyday difficulties. Every trifle was a welcome cause.

Why I did that? Why I made the hell of my own life?

Because of my arrogance, that’s the cruel answer.

I was my biggest, full size trouble. On every footstep I stumbled on myself. I crashed with my vanity, again and again.

I eventually understood it.

It was bewildering discovery. It was huge relief.

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