An hour and a half to practice the violin, the piano, an hour to read quietly … Where can I get this time ?! Nowhere. So no one has it now. All on the run, on the go. Messages, social networks, Twitter, news… I heard poems, I liked them, I should get to know the new author better, but when? I write on my phone. I calm myself: later, I still have time. I already have many such lists: composers, musical groups that I want to listen to …
On top of that, I suddenly notice that when I’m about to do one thing, I immediately start doing another. I wanted to write a verse — instead I think about whether it’s time to fix the porch, or move the furniture around the house. I often rearrange it — this is my favorite way to escape from urgent matters. And I have to run away, because there are so many of them that panic seizes me: I can’t do it all! I don’t want to think about it, leave me alone. And I’m postponing, postponing. And then it’s too late, there’s still no time, nothing came of it, now some other time.
And one day I realized that it was time for me to save myself. That I can’t do this anymore, I’m busy all the time and I’m guilty all the time — at least in front of myself: I didn’t write, I didn’t compose, I didn’t read, I didn’t study. No, I did not look for difficult ways. I chose the easiest one — I went to Wikium and downloaded an application for developing attention, thinking and memory. Someone will call it meditation: we breathe, we relax, we don’t think about anything.
Seemingly complete madness, and so there is not enough time for anything, and here I sit and do nothing at all, I don’t even think. But… here is an analogy that convinces me. If we exercised our body 24 hours a day, soon we would not be able to move an arm or a leg — the muscles would become clogged with lactic acid. It’s the same with the brain. It was once believed that it needs to be constantly loaded, that this develops its potential. Nothing like that — I was convinced of this from my own experience. An overloaded brain ceases to distinguish the important from the insignificant, starts spinning idle and only makes noise all the time.
I generally have more courage — I’m not running away from anything and I’m not afraid to take the first step
My meditations have brought results. The brain freed itself from background noise and learned to clearly prioritize. I no longer choke on business. If I need to write a song, then that’s what I do: I sit down and write. This does not mean that I only do what I want. But I clearly see what is really important — and not in principle important, but for me at this very moment.
Even time suddenly appeared from somewhere. Probably, I stopped wasting it in vain, on all the fuss and unnecessary gestures.
There is another interesting side effect. Although I did not set myself such a goal, I freed myself from some clamps. Before, it was difficult for me to speak — not even in public, but just on the phone. Or with a stranger — shyness prevented me from connecting two words. Now it has passed, I speak without tension, freely. I generally have more courage — I’m not running away from anything and I’m not afraid to take the first step.
And yes, when I’m done with things, I sometimes rearrange the furniture. Because I like it.