Savor The Journey...

For a very long time I have loved snails and I had postcards made up that said, "How Slow Can You Go?" with a snail's picture on it. I thought a lot about the fact that we go willy nilly through life at top speed so that tomorrow we have half forgotten what we did today, never mind last week. Oh sure, we remember the big stuff, like going to work, but can you tell me what you wore, what you ate for breakfast, what the weather was like? Inotherwords, we may reach our goals, and achieve our dreams, but not remember how we got there, and part of the joy of achieving our dreams are all of the many things that we experienced, learned, things that made us grow and change along the way. Remembering those things will make the dream made manifest all the richer and more satisfying. Let yourself savor the journey...

I am moving toward, coming closer and closer, to a dream I've had for decades, and the last decade has been almost brutal at times, but had I not gone through every single thing that I did, I would not appreciate what I am about to achieve, and when I walk through that door into my new life, I will be carrying a backpack filled with all of the memories, places, people, and little lessons I learned along the way that helped me get here. That's one of the reasons why keeping a journal is such a wonderful thing. It helps you remember, and it needn't be some weighty activity, full of deep soul searching, and wrought with angst. It can be fun.

As I've talked about here before you can write your thoughts down, those little steps and big ones too that you took along the way, as well as doodle, and paste in pictures of your dreams as they became clearer and took more definite shape. Often we think we know what we want but the closer we get to it we will find it morphing into something slightly different. It's a marvel to look back and see how you really did achieve your dream, and you will carry these tools with you on into the rest of your life, and they will serve you well, as another and another dream begins to take shape in your life. We never stop dreaming.

I have always loved the quote by writer Ursula LeGuin...

"It is a good thing to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end."

Savor each moment. Take your time, breathe deeply and notice every little thing. The snail creeping along in the grass, the blue sky with the puffy white clouds and how one of them looked like a giraffe, the best breakfast you ever ate in a little diner when you were traveling some place to find just the right thing you needed that you were missing, and that day you found it, and you will never forget that breakfast that day in that diner. Remember when you were at your lowest and you ran across a quote that nearly knocked you over and got you going again. If you don't have one right now, go find one!

How slow can you go? Make a conscious effort to go slower and slower each day, and treasure every precious moment. Your dream will manifest much more quickly than you can imagine and you will never want to forget what got you there. What is time anyway? Remember how when you were little you couldn't wait to get older, and it seemed that time just wouldn't move fast enough to get you there? A year was an eternity. Now time flies so fast it can be frightening. You have it in your power to slow time down. Use that power, and never forget that you can. Remember the snail. Write those words on post-it notes everywhere as a reminder... How Slow Can You Go? Fall in love with snails. Fall in love with everything, and one day when you are sitting smack dab in the middle of your dream finally achieved, you will look back to the path that got you there, and smile, and your life will have deepened and become richer, and your dream will be more satisfying and thrilling than you ever imagined.

I'm going to go meditate on snails now. And the hill I have been climbing. And I never want to forget any of it. Go slow, slower, slowest, and you will be happier than you have ever been.



Maitri