Slowing Down
In the bible, Mary and Martha are used as examples of types of followers. Before a party, Mary sat and listened to Jesus; Martha ran around getting ready. In frustration Martha asks Jesus “don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” to which Jesus replies that only listening and enjoying time with Him was needed — “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
I have always been frustrated with this as I’m the type of parent who likes to go-go-go with/for my kids to fun adventures. And I’m thinking… but if Martha doesn’t do it no one will, right?! After a handful of years at startups where the work is always fast-paced and decisions are rightfully usually made without committee, at work I’m the guy who hated meetings where people talk about the weather and would be frustrated at the person who ‘is about to join’ for 5 minutes. I want to get done the things that need to get done, even at the expense of connection with others.
But lately both as a parent and as an employee, I’m trying to slow things down and enjoy time in the small places. In the car I try to just listen more to the kids. At work I’m learning to slow down and get to know the other people at work and ask more not just about what they created by why.
Because someday the kids won’t remember that they needed their soccer socks to be black per the rules of the local sports association — they’ll only remember I lectured too long about putting them back into the bin that is just for soccer things… they won’t remember that I helped them be responsible students and get to school on time — only that I yelled at them in the mornings to hurry it up. Yesterday my daughter Jojo and I went on a little bike ride around the neighborhood — where she led where we went — and I love this moment where we paused so she could examine a dandelion next to the sidewalk. May we always have that wonder at the natural world.
Recently a former student of mine now in his 30’s who I had kept up contact with after he graduated contacted me for the first time in a year or so. He said there was one time a year or so after he’d graduated when he happened to see me at a sandwich shop on the weekend eating by myself and we talked for a bit. We were talking about life and he was saying how stressed he was with money. I made a comment that, “ya know, money comes in, money goes out… we can’t get too stressed about it,” which apparently was quite influential in his life. Ironically sometime over the past 10 years I’ve often been overly stressed about money even if I have some in the bank — not ‘enough’.
Here’s to slowing down and enjoying the moments that matter.
