Don’t just do something, sit there

We live in a world stuck in fast forward, a world obsessed with speed, with doing everything faster, with cramming more & more into less and less time, every moment of the day is like a race against the clock. All of us are running a race, trying to reach a finish line and the finish line is like a mirage, it vanishes when you come closer.

These days it has become a fashion, a craze, to do everything fast, earlier we used to read now we have speed reading, earlier we used to walk, now we have speed walking, earlier we used to dial, now we have speed dialing, earlier we used to date & now we have speed dating. Even things which are by their very nature slow, we try to speed them up too. We are trying to grow test tube babies; we are experimenting with cloning and so on and so forth. But the ultimate was an advertisement I saw in a newspaper “Enroll for speed yoga”. The most current example is this blog that I am writing, I am writing about how to slow things down but have this impulse to finish it off fast. What a paradox!

We are so marinated in the culture of speed that we fail to notice the toll that this takes on every aspect of our lives, on our health, our diet, our relationships, on community, on our work, on the environment. And then what happens - it takes a wake up call for us to alert us & tell us that we are hurrying thru our lives instead of living our lives, living a fast life instead of a good life. And for many people this wake up call comes in the form of an illness or a burnout, eventually the body says I can’t take it anymore or a relationship goes up in smoke. The only way to nurture a relationship is thru’ constant communication but unfortunately we don’t have time to even do that. How much time do we have even for our most loved ones?

So how did we get so fast & is it possible or even desirable to slow down? Factors that have contributed to this fast culture are technology, urbanization, consumerism, but if you cut thru all this you come to some basic issues like how do you perceive time itself. In the west time moves in a linear path, you either use it or lose it. Benjamin Franklin said "Time is money", whereas in the eastern culture time moves in a circular path & can even renew itself.

Why is it so hard to slow down? – and the answer is - well speed is fun, speed is macho, speed is hot - all that adrenalin rush –it's hard to give it up. Slow, has become a cultural taboo in modern times, slow is a dirty word in our culture -slow is equated with lazy. But we desperately need a paradigm shift, so a better way to understand slowness is that there is bad slow and good slow. An example of "bad slow" is getting stuck in the traffic on a weekend evening when you are with your family and longing to reach your destination. An example of "good slow" is to take your time in office to analyze a problem from all angles before taking a decision.

So now the big question is - is it possible to break free from this mindset of doing everything fast? & thankfully the answer is yes. The paradigm of “fast is good” is changing now, and people are finding that slowing down can actually improve their lives, you can eat better, sleep better, make love better.

All over the world, today we have movements for slowing down; a good example is the movement in America and Europe to decrease the number of working hours per week. And they have proof of this - not only does the quality of life improve, even their productivity goes up. If some of the people here in Qatar especially the ones working in contracting companies would come to know what the working hours of people in Finland for example are –they would turn green with envy. More and more companies these days are encouraging employees to take a break, to unplug and sit quietly for some time because that’s the only way to recharge yourself, to rejuvenate yourself and the only way for your brain to slip into the creative mode.

So next time, you feel you must rush out, go somewhere, do something – my advise is –Don’t just do something, sit there!!

The everyday blessing

All women have desires, right? But what is that one desire that is common to all women? To become slim? To own more jewellery? Or is it to find the best anti-aging cream? No sir, none of these. The singular most common desire for all women is – to have a good and faithful housemaid – no, not a good and faithful husband – a good and faithful housemaid.

I am telling you this from first hand experience. I have seen women from two generations ,my mother's generation and now my wife's generation. And women from both generations continue to have this phobia which I call – maidophobia. Maidophobia can be defined as the fear and the panic that grips women as soon as they come to know
a) that the maid is going to be absent today or

b) that the maid has resigned from the job.
The after effects of both cases is devastating to say the least.

The reasons that the housemaids come up for remaining absent is amazing. Recently, I had been to India for my brother's wedding & one morning I saw my mother answer the telephone. Suddenly, her facial expression changed, she looked worried. "What happened mom" I asked. "Our maid is not coming today" said my mother. "But why?" I asked. "They have elections in their area". "But what is the relation between elections and her not being able to come" was my immediate reaction. My mother explained that during elections, these men and women get a chance to earn upto Rs 500 per day including free food and also some free liquor for the men. The only work that they have to do is to attend election campaigns and be a part of the crowd. The ironical thing is that the same people are the crowd for the ruling as well as opposition parties.

Personally, for me, the absence of the maid always has dire consequences, What happens – Firstly - my wife is in a bad mood because she has to do all the household work - washing and cleaning and so on. And I am assigned two tasks – both I hate - 1) to do the vacumming of all the rooms. And 2) to help my kids clean up their room. On one such occasion, as I was disentangling the wires of the Playstation and trying to arrange things properly, my son came running to me and said "Daddy, I can't find my socks & belt". And then began the quest for the missing socks and belt which lasted for more than an hour. I finally succeeded, but that day I learnt the real value of the presence of a housemaid.

Do you think that only the corporate world faces the problem of employees resigning? Thousands of households are affected when their housemaids leave them for greener pastures. But hats off to my wife - she has devised a foolproof strategy to retain our maid. She has done 2 things - (i) painted an extremely grim picture about all our neighbours to our housemaid, telling her stories about how they ill treat their housemaids etc. and (ii) she has told our neighbours that our maid is so busy with other part time jobs, that it is indeed a miracle that she is finding time to come and do our house work. And let me tell you, her strategy is still working.

Friends, in this so called modern day and age, we have all the gadgets – washing machines, dishwashers, vacumm cleaners, mixers, grinders – the works. But we still need somebody to operate them on a daily basis. Don’t we? But don't worry - the housemaid profession is here to stay and the next time your doorbell rings early in the morning – and you see your housemaid from the peephole – thank the Lord – because she is indeed a blessing who comes to your doorstep everyday.