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Tag: Slice of Life

The Power of Pause

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Life can become overwhelmingly busy. We can feel like there just isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done. People now talk about being time poor. Part of this is because we have bought into the idea that the “busier” we are, the better, more successful we are.

Drake Baer addresses this in his blog, When did busy become cool [1]. He says that today, being constantly busy is the aspirational ideal. However, this was not always the case.

For a large part of human history, those at the top of society took pride in just how little work they had to do. Constant toil was the lot of the bottom of society. In fact, taking pleasure in their labor was all that they had. Now, it seems that the higher you go in society, the busier you become.

An article in the Guardian says that where once the flex of the rich and powerful was how much luxury and leisure time you could afford. Today, it is all about how hard you are working [2].

So why did this change?

Nothing New Under the Sun

The idea of business being a virtue is not a new concept. There have always been those who believed that hard work was the best rout. That living a life of ease and leisure was to walk the road to damnation. On the other hand, hard work was the path to righteousness.

I am sure that most of you are familiar with the saying: “ideal hands are the devils tools.” Most scholars believe that this saying is rooted in Proverbs 16:27 [3]. The wording is different, however. The verse basically means that wicked people look for ways to be wicked. How this relates to the saying is the idea that if you have time on your hands, you could find ways to do bad things. Implied is the idea that if you are always working, you won’t have time to get into trouble.

Grammar-Monster.com points to the works of 4th century monk St. Jerome as the possible creator of the phrase as we know it today [4]. He wrote, “Engage in some occupation, so that the devil may always find you busy.”

In short, this idea of the virtue of hard work comes out of religious teachings. Basically, working hard is the key to living a righteous life. Temptation is always waiting to spring on us and drag us down. If we are always busy, we won’t have time to fall for it. If you are always busy, you can’t get into trouble. (You could write books on the social reasons for these kinds of teachings, but I am not going to go there now.)

Now, there is nothing wrong with hard work. It is good to use your time and effort in productive endeavors. But, this doesn’t mean that you should spend all your time working and doing nothing else. We do need breaks from time to time.

Running all the Time Just Makes You Tired

Working hard is a good thing. I would never condone just setting back and letting the world provide for you while you give nothing back. But, too much of a good thing is bad, and this is true of hard work. Honestly however, there is no virtue in being busy for the sake of being busy.

One of the promises of the industrial revolution was that as automation got better, people in general would have to work less. And though it was very slow, it did seem that this was coming to pass. Over time the number of hours the average person worked was dropping. By the early part of the 20th century, it looked like we were on track to a very short work week. But the Great Depression and some cultural changes set everything back. It seems like that dream is long gone.

Burn out is a very really thing. Constantly working and living by the hustle mentality will lead to it faster than anything else. You will reach a point when you mind and body just give out. If you are lucky, this just means that you are forced to take a rest. If you’re not, you could die.

Back when I worked hanging sheetrock, I worked with an older man who had been doing this his whole adult life. He was an expert at the job and was really fast.

One thing that you need to understand, in the profession of hanging sheetrock, you are paid by the foot. It is a production, not hours worked pay scale. This means that the faster you can hang the rock, the more money you could get paid. 

One day on the site, my coworker and I were talking. He was telling me about how years before he worked with his brother. They worked really well together and could knock out a house in just a couple of days. They would regularly work sun up to sun down 6 to 7 days a week. Because of this, they were making really good money. He had a  nice big house, a brand new truck, jet skies, a boat and camper. All the toys and things that money could buy. He thought he was living the high life. That was until he realized he couldn’t remember the last time he got to use any of these toys. All he did was work. He had all this money and stuff thanks to all the work he was doing, but he never got to enjoy it. He learned the hard way that you have to work breaks and vacations into your life.

Again, there are many good reasons to work hard. But, if all you do is work, you are not really living. In then end, you are just making yourself tired. While hard work is good, there is also a place for breaks.

The Pre-Surgical Pause

Several years ago, a new practice was implemented to reduce accidents during surgery. The idea was, once the patient and surgical team were all present in the OR, they would take a step back and go over the details of the surgery. They made sure that they had the right patient, had the correct area that they were going to work marked and that they had every thing they needed. The whole process can takes only a minute or two, but this time out does greatly reduce the number of accidents and improves patient survival and recovery rates [5]. 

By taking this short pause before starting, everyone could be sure that the following procedure would go off without any issues. They were all able to take a breath and re-center.

Slowing down helps to center our lives

When we are in the middle of the hustle, it is easy to lose sight of anything but the next task.  We end up just putting on foot in front of the other. We can even lose sight of why we are doing all the work in the first place. In this mind set, burn out is a certainty.

It is at times like this that stopping long enough to take a few deep breaths can give you space in you day to center and remind yourself of what is really important. You can even reevaluate your tasks and make sure that you are using your time wisely. You can bring a small place of peace in the midst of all the chaos.

There are times when we really have a lot to do. Sometimes we have no choice but to rush and hustle through all our waking hours. But these times need to be balanced with longer periods of down time. It is all about the balance.

Nature moves through seasons. There are periods of work and periods of rest. It is these rhythms that help life thrive. We should learn from nature. The important thing to remember is that we need to have the same kind of rhythm. We need times of work and times of rest. If we want balance in our lives, then we need to seek out the proper rhythm for ourselves.

Your life will be much better when you learn to live by a more natural rhythm. Doing this will help you live a life of true peace and joy. You will be able to handle the chaotic times because you will know that a time of rest and peace is just around the corner. You don’t have to live a life of constant struggle and hustle. You can learn to live a life of balance and peace.

Thank you once again for taking the time to read this. As always, Namaste.

Footnotes:

1. https://medium.com/thrive-global/when-did-busy-become-cool-8ca13f5f54f9

2. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/24/new-status-symbol-hard-work-spending-ceos

3. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Prov%2016%3A27&version=KJV

4. https://www.grammar-monster.com/sayings_proverbs/idle_hands_are_the_devils_tools.html

5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8518691/

Anime Review- Higehiro (Shaved the Bead

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Anime Review: Higehiro (Shaved the Bead. Then Picked Up a High School Girl.)

 

It is not often that I come across an anime that deeply moves me. I have been a fan of Anime for most of my life and there are several series that I enjoy; but beyond entertainment, they don’t really move me. This one did. If I were being honest, I would say that it shook my world. It hit me deep in the gut and brought me to tears. I don’t know if I have come across one before that has moved me this much. Because of this, I have decided to review it. All that said, let’s start with a synopsis and then I will tell you why I loved it so much. And don’t worry, I am going to attempt to avoid spoilers.

The series opens with our protagonist Yoshida confessing his feelings to his crush of 5 years only to have her turn him down claiming to already have a boyfriend. He decides to drown his sorrows and gets hammered. It is in this state that he makes his way home and finds a 17-year-old runaway sitting under a streetlamp. This event is our first introduction to Sayu. She tells Yoshida that she doesn’t have anywhere else to go and asks if she can stay with him. She even offers to let him sleep with her.

While Yoshida takes her home, he makes it clear that he is not going to sleep with her. The next day, he decides to let her stay in exchange for working around the house. He does reiterate that he has no interest in sleeping with her and not to proposition him again. With this, the stage is set for the story that is to follow. Over the course of the series, we learn more about what Sayu has been through culminating in the reason she ran away in the first Place.

Higehiro is sometimes heartbroken, while others are full of hope. As I said at the beginning, there were times when the story had me balling. Through the series, you get to see our two main characters grow: both in their relationship and as people. They both help each other and help heal each other.

The series deals with the themes of fate, emotional pain, kindness, and healing. The pace of learning about Sayu’s background and the trauma she has endured matches the pace at which she comes to deal with those things. We can see her process what she has been through, and that is a lot. Had she not met Yoshida when she did, things would have only gotten worse.

 

Pros:

There is a lot to like about this series. While some of the themes are difficult to deal with (I’ll say it again, I bawled hard several times) they were handled about as well as you can hope. The idea of a single man taking in a teenager who he doesn’t have any connection with could very easily go wrong, but Higehiro handles it so well. And this issue is the least dark theme in the whole series.

As I said before, another great part of this is the characters. They start out well rounded and for some of them, we see them grow. Also, as they navigate their relationships with each other, we see them change and adapt to what life is throwing at them. None of them feel cliche or two dimensional.

Finally, I will say that this story is full of heart. I grew to love these characters. It is as if they became my friends. I’m happy when they succeed and it broke my heart when I saw their pain. When they all got the happy ending, they fully deserved, I was overjoyed. It was the perfect ending. It did not erase the pain of the characters, it just showed that they had grown past it.

 

Cons:

The only con I can give is that the themes are very heavy. Sayu is only 17 at the start of the story and she had already been living on the streets selling her body for a bed. She is deeply broken and lost. When you learn about the traumas that led her to this point, it will break you.

There are some themes that might trigger some viewers, so if you have your own emotional and physical trauma in the past, I recommend you look up a more in-depth explanation of the plot and themes online so that you know if it will be too much for you.

While these dark themes are central to the story, and it is how Sayu deals with them that make this such an amazing anime, they can be difficult for some people. (As much as I loved this and want to share it with my wife, I also know that she would not enjoy it because of some of the themes.) I list this as a con simply because I know that the themes will keep some people from enjoying it.

 

Overall, I love this anime. I had to watch the ending a second time simply because it was so perfect. It had the perfect balance in the story. I think the best thing I can say about it is that once it was over, I didn’t need it anymore. It was a perfectly contained story. I highly recommend it. Easily a 5/5.

 

P.S.

If you would like to dig into the series more to see if the themes might trigger you, here is the Wikipedia page for it.