Picture the onslaught of worries always rushing in. Picture the questions you grieve yourself with. What’s my five year plan? Is the dryer done yet? What are my career goals? Do I have any? Did I ever really? Were the clothes put in the dryer to begin with? Do they smell like they need to be washed again? Where will I be this time next year? What if you added a few extra dryer sheets?
Highly effective people have mastered six other habits, you’re stuck on “Be proactive”. There’s nothing quite like the smell of sour clothes and the marketable scent of summer breeze.
Could you change direction? Do something different? Highly effective people begin with the end in mind, but you’re wondering if it’s too late to start gain? If it’s too late for a new beginning?
Ask and ye shall receive, they tell you. Seek and ye shall find, they add. Knock and it will be opened, they say. But, you receive what you never asked for. Find everything except what you need. Discover that some doors are best left unopened.
You settle on another rinse cycle. Pour in fabric softener by the cap full. Anything to smooth out the wrinkles. To reduce the friction. Highly effective people put first things first, but this is the current state of things. You and your dirty laundry, spinning at high speed.
But, stop for a minute. Picture a distance. Between the last anxious rumination and the next desperate plea. Between the stain and the pretreatment. Picture an interval in the thick of it. An opening between each thought. Between the stimulus and response. Between the question and its mark. A fissure. An idling. A clearing. Highly effective people think win-win, but maybe there’s nothing to achieve.
Ask and ye shall receive, but what is it that you really need? Seek and ye shall find, but is there anything actually missing? Knock and it will be opened, but where is it you need to go? Where else is there to be?
Highly effective people seek first to understand and then to be understood, but everything begins and ends with being present. With understanding that you are here. With understanding that you are.
Picture a perfect stillness. A delicate wash. A slower speed. The whirring rhythm. Picture a pulse and nothing else. Picture this and nothing less. Ask and ye shall receive, but what has desire alone ever given you? Seek and ye shall find, but you’ve lost yourself in all the searching. Knock and it will be opened, but why are you knocking when you’ve already arrived?
Highly effective people synergize, but what deeper cooperation is there than coming home to your own heart beat?
Picture pulling in air. Picture watching it. Where it comes from. Where it goes. Through your nostrils. At the tip of your nose. A gentle cycle. Tumble dry low. Through your chest and into your belly. Picture yourself holding it there and then letting it go. The tension and release. Your lungs, collapsing. Your shoulders, relaxing. Picture a slow exhale. The surety. The constancy.
Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it will be opened. Machine wash cold. Iron as needed. But, some things are given without asking. Some things are found without being sought. Some doors are always open to things we never knew we always needed. Highly effective people sharpen the saw, they say, but what could be more important, more renewing, than the fact that you are breathing?
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We've been at this for who knows how long. If we could shoulder in enlightenment or bliss out completely, then it would have worked by now. But we are here, in-between, working it day by day, moment by moment, for who knows how long.