I experienced something very profound today and it has been inspired by Serge Benhayon’s book Time. I had started a typing job on my computer and knowing that I tend to rush these ‘uninteresting and boring’ tasks, I decided to be very conscious not to speed up but to stay present with me and in what I was doing and feeling, rather than just getting the job done, no matter what.

As I proceeded I noticed that I did not have the usual self-judgment of being slow or clumsy and also, for a change, the job did not feel tedious (I am not a good typist!). Instead, my work felt open-ended, had no hard edges or annoying streaks and was totally free of pressure and the need to perform or conform – it felt as though I had all the time in the world.

At the same time and to be fair, I was just as slow as ever and made mistakes; not as many as usual though, probably because I wasn’t rushing. What I also noticed was that my output seemed to be the same, whether I would have been rushing like in the past or staying present with me and attending to every step and nuance as I was doing now.

There was a definite lack of something to rub against, get hassled by, or even be the slightest uptight about, nothing provided friction or an issue of any definition or description. All there was – was the space to do what had to be done but I hadn’t squeezed this doing into one of my usual to-do boxes and seasoned it with haste, raciness and thoughts of being too slow and nor was I sitting at my desk with physical tension or in anticipation of a fast and speedy end result.

So let me recap – the job was the same as many others before it, I had not become a better typist, my speed and accuracy had not improved.

But something was different. What had changed?

I had not set myself a deadline (strange word that, a ‘dead line’) and thus there was nothing to measure myself against. Speed had become irrelevant and I was not competing with time, trying to outdo, outsmart, outrun or even overtake it.

When the job was finished it finished at a certain time as measured by the clock, a time that would have arrived no matter what I had been doing and how I had been doing it. After all, 4pm is 4pm, regardless of how I spend the time until that time, whether I run the show from my head, rush around and work under pressure or whether I ‘take my time’ and do what needs to be done without any rushing and expectations of how fast I should be getting through this task.

The job still took as long as it took, I still made all the mistakes I made and I still finished when I did.

Would I have finished five minutes earlier had I rushed?

Maybe – but maybe not because I then need to correct more mistakes.

But more importantly – would those potential extra five minutes have given me any joy?

Actually, that is highly unlikely.

And the reason why? Because I would have felt frazzled and on edge, under pressure, physically tight and mentally highly strung.

What had happened then?

I had not put any effort into trying to get to that end point earlier or faster and in that I got to feel the true blessing of time – the revelation of time as space. And in that space, time does not matter, it is not my enemy and I don’t have to compete with it. And to top it all off – everything that needs to get done gets done.

Or, in other words, when I don’t rush, I am not slow!

Child’s play in hindsight – literally so, because as children we live in that space, we spend all our time in it. Do you remember the endless- and spaciousness of each moment, lived and experienced from and in a little body that is present with and in itself? And it certainly didn’t give a hoot about being faster or better until we learnt to conform and take on these concepts!

Well worth getting back to and repeating frequently, like the good medicine it is; good medicine for our physical and mental wellbeing as well as for our relationships and the enjoyment of the work we do, whatever it may be.

By Gabriele Conrad, Goonellabah NSW

Further Reading:
Time and Our Perception Of It
Choosing Stop Moments in My Life
Time: How I Changed my Relationship With The Invisible Tyrant