mid-year pause

I've just enjoyed a blissful week free from the busy-ness of life.

No interview prep, research, work, and study. Correction- only five hours of work on Saturday.

Yesterday, there was no more internet either. The household internet was shaped. Suddenly, my family was catapulted back to a time before the internet.

It's almost laughable, how lost we were. I was so devastated about a world without search engines. My mother could not read news on her iPad. We sat around the table, exchanging stories and jokes. And then we all went to bed at 9:30pm. 

This was a stark change from the events of the preceeding weeks. As in, I was so busy studying for a course that I barely took notice as my father and siblings built a computer for me. One day there were lots of boxes and the next it was a computer.

After my course had finished, I began to transfer some files onto the new computer, and in doing so I stumbled across some unfinished blog entries.

One was from 2010, after my trip to India. I reflected on what a deeply enriching experience it was. To be able to slow down and appreciate life entirely. At first I couldn't understand how it was that villagers would often mill around the few "stalls" in the morning, doctors were allowed home for a one hour lunch break, and people always had time to have evening tea with their neighbours. On top of that, the entire hospital began the day with prayers and a quick sermon. It was life from a completely different perspective.

I wrote "Somewhere along the line, somebody sold me this idea of busyness, whether it was a poster, or in a TV ad, etc., and I've bought into it. Well I've changed my mind, I think it's overrated. Therefore I shall practice being very, very still. Let everybody else do their stylish brisk walking!"

It's interesting, the way we schedule our lives. As a child, time crawled as slowly as I did.

During my teenage years, I would pencil the rare social event into my diary and look forward to it for weeks in advance.

In high school, I would split my evenings into portions of time that matched my allocated homework.

In university, I admired people who seemed to accomplish so much with their time. People who were presidents of multiple clubs, had thousands of social media friends/followers, worked two jobs, played in orchestras, and travelled so often for conferences that they had enough frequent flyer points for their annual volunteer missions trip to some impoverished country.

They were time efficient, I'd decided, and I had the impression that if I did the same thing (that is, throw myself into a multitude of different activities), I too could achieve more that I could fit into my diary.

Well, I was wrong. Apparently, the more I try to do, the less I achieve. If anything, the past few disastrous weeks have definitely shown me that.

It is so nice to be able to step out of the whirlwind of looming deadlines and the oppressive fear of failure.

And while I've stepped out, I may just linger here awhile. Smell the roses. Watch the tulips bloom in Araluen. Feel kaixing's silky fur. Listen to the sounds of stillness.