Why the rush?

Is it just me or does anyone else find the genre psychological thriller appealing? I mean what’s there to not like right? So, few weeks back, my friend recommended me a movie of the genre and I watched the trailer. The trailer seemed pretty interesting, so I brought some snacks and wrapped myself in the warmth of my bed, the time read 12:03 am, but who cares right? I started the movie. It was around 2 am when the movie ended. The movie was amazing to say the least and it fulfilled its task of completely boggling up my mind.

But I had to sleep and the only way I could do that was to see something that would take my mind off all the trauma that the movie induced. And what better way than a Disney movie? So I watched whatever popped up first. This movie was okay-ish but there were few lines that really irked me. The protagonist in one of her speech said and I quote, “Have you ever seen a flower grow? I mean of course not. It’s nearly impossible to wait for anything that takes that long. But if you did, it would change you. It would slow you down. It would remind you that real things take time.”

I remember studying lots of stories about how the works you have put for tomorrow should be done today and that kept for later should be done right now. Google the word “procrastinate” and there arrives millions of quotes about how time waits for none so do it all today. And this generation as I perceive has strongly adhered to that belief.

Everyone’s rushing. From doing this to that, there’s no time to waste. You wake up rushing to attend the classes/office, then rush to go get lunch and come back rushing, then rush again to be done for the day to rush home where you rush to complete all your house work so that you can rush to Netflix and try to chill in order to rush to go to sleep rushing about how you have an early morning tomorrow and rush to get back to the same old routine again. I mean even right now as you read this you might be rushing to finish reading as fast as possible so that you can rush to go do some other thing. That’s how life has become, a rush.

With all the progress and development in the world, surviving has been much easier. We often hear that we have everything in the tip of our finger. And hence, we have got to do more, be more and just go on and on and never slow down. Because for god’s sake if we slow down or sometimes pause to take a break, we have lost. The stakes are that high. The expectations are tremendous and it’s not even from other people I am talking about, it is from ourselves, only because we believe everything is easier now than it had ever been. But is it?

Some meta-analytical studies have found that the average teenager in this generation has the same level of anxiety as a psychiatric patient in the 1950s and the situation isn’t any better for other age groups. And this I believe is due to the overwhelmingly high standards we have imposed on ourselves. I mean look at us now, in a situation where the world is fighting against a deadly virus, we simply refuse to stop or slow down.

I know this is too big of a statement to make. I mean the food’s got to come and even if the future isn’t certain, it’s still there and no, stopping isn’t the best choice to make. But can we not slow down? A six-month vacation two times a year is what we were asking for, remember? And now that we are in a situation where getting out of the house is illegal, why can we not for once just take things slow? Just stop thinking about anything and everything for a few minutes every day.

This is what I believe meditation is, the technique of focusing the mind on a certain thought or activity other than the burdens of everyday life. Studies have found that meditation is such a powerful technique that, after only eight weeks, the brain’s structure changes. I don’t really have an elaborate experience in meditating but I do remember the first time I meditated. It was in one of my college classes, and since it was kind of a compulsory thing to do, I had complied. The day was Friday with the whole week’s frustration piled up but after those 5 minutes, I really felt numb, like there was nothing, absolutely nothing. And while it might even sound absurd, that was such a liberating feeling.

Now since we deny to pause and the hectic-ness has started taking its toll, its high time that we start looking for a technique to balance it all and what better way than meditating?

Lastly, just to follow up on whether or not I had a good night’s sleep after the Disney movie, well I didn’t because I had a sleep paralysis that night. But that story is for some other day, after all what’s the rush right?