What's the Rush?

What's the Rush? John Cali These past couple of months I've been here in New York State with my family have been most interesting. When I'm home in Wyoming, I rarely pay attention to the mainstream news media. But since I arrived in Rochester, I've been reading the local newspaper occasionally. A few days ago, I saw an article about a local club, an organization dedicated to single people looking for a partner. Now there are tons of organizations like that today -- as I'm sure you know if you're single and searching. But this one was a bit different. A $35 ticket will gain you entrance to one of the group's gatherings. There you get to spend eight minutes with a prospective partner. Then you decide if you want to pursue the contact. Good grief -- eight minutes! Are we so hurried and hassled today that we can spare only eight minutes getting to know someone? And possibly making a decision that could profoundly change the rest of our lives? What's the rush? Here's Chief Joseph. Chief Joseph Your modern world and most -- but not all -- your cultures are obsessed with time. How often have you heard someone say "I don't have enough time."? Or perhaps you've said it yourself. It's that old human bugaboo about there never being enough -- enough time, enough money, enough opportunity, enough . . . well, you name it. And so you rush about your daily life, never or rarely taking time to, as you say, "smell the roses." You have your schedules, your deadlines, and all the pressures and stresses that go with schedules and deadlines. Now, we are not saying it's valueless to plan your day, your week, etc. But we are saying you often put too much emphasis on DO-ing, and not enough on BE-ing. Time is a flexible commodity, if you will. It's neither fixed nor inflexible. But you often find yourself acting as if there is never enough of it. And so, to repeat ourselves here, you find yourself rushing about your life. Stressing yourself over what you may have to leave undone. You're not living in the moment, savoring all the pleasures life has to offer you. You often even rush through your love-making which ought to be one of your life's supreme pleasures -- but you just want to get it done. Even if you're doing something you must get done, you're often more focused on getting it done -- and not enjoying the doing of it. It all comes down to this, friends -- you're focusing far too much on the destination and far too little on the journey. The real joy is in the journey, not the destination. For once you've reached the destination -- as gratifying and fulfilling as that is -- what usually happens? You start focusing on another destination, another goal. And then you're rushing off on another joyless journey. What's the rush? You're missing most of the joy, pleasure, and passion of life in the physical. You're missing the whole reason you -- your higher self -- chose to come into this incarnation. Your higher self's reason for incarnating is simple -- you came here to be a joyful creator. You are not being punished by some angry god who's condemned you to hell on earth. We emphasize the word "joyful" -- for that's the important part. The "creator" part, while important, is not the most important part. For you cannot help but be a creator -- either deliberately or by default. If you're rushing about, focused only on the destination, and not on taking joy in the journey, you're probably doing a lot of creating by default. But if you savor the journey, and smell the roses along the way, you will be a joyful creator. And you will create more of what you want, and less of what you do not want. When you're focused on joy, your life will become easy and effortless. Find the joy in all your life's experiences, even the challenging ones. The joy is always there, waiting for you to find it. >From your higher self's perspective, there are no schedules, no deadlines, no destinations. You'll never get it all done, either in the physical or nonphysical world. You are on an eternal journey of growth. The journey is the destination. So enjoy it. What's the rush? Copyright