gift yourself the most precious goods of all: TIME

Our life is fast. Far too fast. One day I asked myself why my grandparents could remember much better than me what they had done yesterday, a week ago or even decades ago. When they talk about experiences they had lived in the past century, sometimes they remember a large amount of details. I asked my mom about it and she gave me an insightful answer: nowadays our eyes are used to spend hours before screens and see pictures and short videos that don’t even last 10 seconds. Our brain doesn’t even have time to process what it saw, before it needs to focus on something new again.

A friend of mine who I met recently, expanded this thought: we’re now trained to not question anything anymore, when in fact, we should question more than ever.

When we watch nature, we can observe, that she is moving at a totally different pace than we are. It takes at least 10 years for a tree to grow to a decent size and blossoms take months to bloom. On peaceful days the wind strokes the leaves of a tree just enough for them to welcome the warm embracing. When we slow down, we’ll notice scenes that otherwise get lost in the speed. Nature doesn’t care if we get up for sunrise, it’ll happen anyways, but we could gift ourselves a beautiful quiet moment, watching the earth turn towards the sun every single day of our lives. How many sunrises have you seen? Was it just on a few special occasions or did you realize that beauty doesn’t need a special occasion?

Nature is what calms me down fastest. Whenever I feel unlike myself, I seek for a timeout in a place as natural as possible, preferably without cars and with a view. Horizons, mountains and endless fields have the magic ability to remind me of what’s really important.

We aren’t wired to think as fast as we do. At least not all the time. Over the millennia the art of practicing one task for several hours has almost gotten lost completely. Instead of just brushing our teeth, we have to check the latest news on our phones too. Instead of just washing the dishes, we try to focus on what we’ll have to get done at work. If we take a step back and slow down, dish washing could actually present just washing the dishes. Pulling the weeds could be just that and cooking would turn into a joyful activity because we could gift ourselves the time to watch the processes of physics.

How long has it been since you took a walk just for the sake of having two good feet? I had forgotten, that in this money- and successdriven world, we don’t always need a goal. Do you still look out windows in planes, trains, buses or are you convinced it’s not worth it, because you’ve seen it all before? The perspective depends on who is looking, so make sure to see everything that has changed since you checked last.

While I’m writing this I’m watching the sunset from the top of a hill and next to me I see spiders, caterpillars and flies looking for food. To us, their lives might seem incredibly simple. Doing the same thing everyday with only 3 tasks in life really: eating, reproducing and surviving. But imagine, having all the time in the world to explore forest grounds, enter all the waters and caves you come across. Climb to the top of every hill you want to, just because you have enough time.

We as humans, make two big mistake. We’re convinced that we don’t have enough time to do the things we love. And we’re taking time for granted. Time is a gift, that you will never get back and that cannot be reversed. It’s about making time for the things that mean the most to you. You are the master over your own time management and if you don’t get your prioritiesright, you’ll never live true to your inner values. Travelling taught me how precious our time on this beautiful planet is and that’s why I decided not to waste mine. None of us get more or less than the others, all the successful and happy and fulfilled and poor and sad people have 24 hours a day. They just use them totally different.

The other day I gave the neighbor’s kid a private lesson and we were talking about the tenses in English grammar. The wisdom of this eleven-year old baffled me. <There’s the Past, then there’s the Now and the Future exists too>, I explained. “Yes” he said and today is a gift, that’s why it’s called present.

I want to present to you my favourite mindful activites, to gift you some inspiration. I’d love to hear about your favs in the comments 😉

WALKING. Definitely one of the best tasks to calm down and remember who I am. Walking at a slow pace, without anything — no phone, no music, nothing. Just me in nature. There are so many small things, nature gifts us every single day, we only have to look close enough. One friend I met in Costa Rica, was convinced that trees were actually waving at us. For thousands of years, they’ve been making the effort of greeting us, without getting anything in return. So now I wave back at them too. Butterflies and birds will only sit on you, if you’re patient enough to let them come to you. If you’re patient enough to breathe slowly and fully indulge in the present moment and slow down to vibrate at the same energy as they do, you will experience magical encounters.

EFFORTLESS AND SLOW ACTIVITIES. Hereby I mean really anything that doesn’t require much effort — except for patience. Pottery, drawing, making bead necklaces, stroking your own body, pulling the weeds, washing your car/bike by hand, baking a cake, writing long letters to a loved one, planting, swimming. As you can see almost every activity can be turned into a meditative mindfulness exercise if only we gift ourselves this precious moment.

By focusing on one task at a time, my memorisation and my focus have improved immensely. I’ve also noticed changes in my perspective on the world. Practicing thoughtfulness has allowed me to witness beautiful scenes, that I would’ve missed if I’d lived too fast. In Costa Rica, seeing the sunset at the beach is a social activity. They make an effort to see the whole sunset — golden hour till you see the first stars. Before, I’d rarely thought about paying attention to that on that deeper level. Yeah sure, had I seen sunsets and my friends and I had also gone to special places to witness it, but in the day-to-day, I hadn’t made much time to watch this magical moment. This year I’ve probably seen at least a third of the sunrises and paid much more attention to sunsets too. It’s funny how many people you can observe who look at it through the small screen of their phones, just for a picture and leave right after that.

We want to take pictures, to relive precious moments, but if we watch a sunrise from the screen of our phones, there will be no moment to be relived, because in the present we focused more on the future, than fully immersing in the Now.

If we never watched sunsets, we wouldn’t experience this temporary felling of loss and the nostalgia of a friend who left. Isn’t it immensely beautiful, that in less than 12 hours she’ll be back? We take this far too granted. Most of the people don’t even thank the sun for gifting us our lives, but their lives would be nothing without her.

Another example of us only expressing gratitude for what we have when it’s no longer there. From experience I can tell, it’s much more beautiful to share this moment with the sun and tell her how grateful I am.

Live in the Now.

Take out the time you need to cherish what you have.

Slow activities in nature will teach you an immense amount of life, if only you’re patient enough to receive her lessons.