Hurried thoughts.
I am moving at a much slower pace these days living on an island going off ‘village time’ and hearing my local friends say things like “just relax, you’re in Bali…”
It’s much easier for me to catch the hurried thoughts when they surface- laughably, they arise most often when I am waiting to eat (nothing shows you your impatience more than being ‘hangry’ aka hungry and angry at the same time).
To recall a few instances…
I ordered a fresh coconut and the lady responded with “please wait a moment, my friend will get it from the tree.” After which, a man proceeded to climb up the nearest palm tree in sight and begin to chop off the coconut fruits (like damn, she said fresh fresh)
I stepped into a day spa and I asked if I could have a 1 hour massage and the lady responded with “please wait a moment, I will call my friend”, a few moments later a lady arrives on a motorbike ready to give me my massage (on demand, just like that).
I asked for some sugar syrup to sweeten my iced tea and when they gave me my order, they said “please be careful, the sugar has just been melted”
I was enjoying some freshly roasted peanuts at lunch and upon leaving the restaurant, I glanced at the side of the road where there was a tarp laid out with thousands of peanuts during out in the sun
My driver told me that early every morning, people go to the local market to buy meat that they plan to cook and eat that day. There are no refrigerators to store food overnight- you get what you need daily, no more or less.
Enjoying my fresh coconut by the sparkling turquoise blue waters at Virgin Beach, Karangasem
I laughed to myself.
I know it might sound odd, but all these instances are laughable to me because they remind me of how good things do in fact take time.
In village life, I’m forced to see almost every stage of the process it takes to put food on my plate (a truck loaded with pigs drives past me every morning on my walk for goodness sake! - sorry if that’s too visual for you).
Point of the story is, everything undergoes a process. Living in the West where anything we want is readily available, stocked and mass produced. We are so detached from where our food comes from and how it’s made that it shocks us to hear about or see the process in action (i.e. documentaries about animals, the food industry and whatnot).
My morning breakfast view overlooks a rice field where I observe the farmers tending to their rice fields.
When you see the farmers tending to the rice fields daily, rising up early, sweating away in the heat of the day- you see the effort it takes to farm and grow the rice that will end up on your plate. It causes you to have a deep respect for not just the process it takes to produce something but also the final product itself.
It feels like a miracle. A gift. Safe to say I began to look at every grain of rice differently from then on.
I can see now why many of us live such a hurried life. Our ‘hurried thoughts’ stem from an expectation that everything should be instant.
We are so estranged from the natural process it takes to produce anything because we’ve been conditioned to expect things instantly.
We lose reverence for the process involved in producing good things that impatience becomes our familiar state.
We tell ourselves that “if its taking a long time, something is not right”
“If its taking longer than we expected, we’re doing something wrong”
But if we learn a lesson or two from nature (of which we are part of), good things actually do take time to produce. In fact, rarely anything happens instantly in nature. If it appears to, it’s only because we’re witnessing a singular moment that actually belongs to an entire process.
Much like the blossoming of a flower or the moment the butterfly spreads its wings.
If you want to live a slower life, less hurried and not feeling the pressure of time- you must practise looking at the process as a whole and appreciate what is unfolding before you.
You must learn to trust the process more than the you trust your plan or timeline. All things have their own pace of growth.
Just because there are two flower buds of the same species, doesn’t mean they will or must grow in the same way and time. They each have their process and they are each beautiful as they are.
To experience freedom from the ‘rush’ in day to day life, my invitation to you is to detach from your lists and stop looking at how many hours, days or months have passed.
You can decide no matter what stage of the journey you are in, that it is perfect as it is.
You can choose to see what is in front of you as part of a greater process. Know with confidence that what you're doing is enough.
You can find peace in allowing what is to unfold in its own way and time without rush.
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