Last evening I was having trouble getting to sleep. So, I got up and went down to the swimming pool area and sat down on the chair next to the pool. I was not carrying my phone or a book or anything else with me. It was just me, nature and the sound of water flowing from the pool. There was something soothing about this soft noise of flowing water and moonlight.
I think I sat there enjoying the moon light, a light breeze and the sound of flowing water for about half an hour. It felt like forever. I realised that I missed this joy in my life. I grew up in a town which had neither a river and nor was it close to the sea. So, the only way I would listen to the sound of flowing water was through audio cassettes – specifically the one by Pandit Shivkumar Sharma (Elements – Water) and we used to sleep on the terrace of my home to enjoy the company of moon and the stars.
Those days it was out of necessity. There were frequent power outages and it was too hot to sleep inside. So, we slept on the terrace. But we got to enjoy those nights. We would even cook dinner and take it to the terrace and have moonlight dinners as a family. Time used to slow down.
Yesterday made me realise that I have fallen prey to the always on, always connected, always busy productivity junkie that I never wanted to be. Always looking for ways to increase the productivity, to do something faster, cheaper, better. Always doing. The question that was and is still lingering in my mind is if this is all there is to life. Always Doing?
I think there is more to life than just doing. I think that “The most important thing for us to do is to be”. Be kind. Be still. Be present. Be a friend. Be a parent. Be a spouse. Don’t just do something. Just Be.
It is in these moments of being that we are able to tap into the power of our own self. It is in these moments of just being that we are able allow our emotions to bubble up. Our deepest desires to surface up. Our innermost fears to show their faces, so that we can talk to and about them.
I think this is the essence of mindfulness. This is also the essence of self-reflection. This is also how we can learn what we truly want, desire and aspire to. Once we know that we can then start doing something to realise them.
Lesson learnt from yesterday:
[bctt tweet=”Before doing, there is being!” username=”rmukeshgupta”]
All actions need to come from a deep understanding of what we truly aspire for. This is important for each one of us but even more important if we are leaders. As leaders we are not just responsible for our actions but the actions of all those whom we lead. So, it is important to take the pause and just be to connect with the true purpose that we are striving towards regularly and explore if we are still on the right path.
There are a lot of times when the day-to-day hustle bustle can alter our course ever so slightly and some more and some more that one day in the future we realise that we are way off course. There is true danger of this occurring if we don’t recalibrate, re-center and re-align to our core purpose.
