RECHARGING BATTERIES

It seems to be entrenched in the way of being of many people. This ideia that if we run enough we will arrive at that promised place, where resting is allowed...

I won’t even discuss the paradox. But I’ve often seen the batteries of those that run rampant falter. And, of course, tired we run less. We produce less. And so we can even rest less, because there’s so much to do. Never stop, never stop!...

When we hire ourselves to police if we run enough, in a full time “job”, 7 days a week, only stopping to sleep – when sleeping is possible – we become exhausted. So we dream with vacation... but vacation from which job? The real one or the internone?

It’s important to know that we don’t always have to take our efforts to the maximum. We don’t have to watch permanently if we couldn’t have done it better or influenced more. We don’t have to face each decision with the weight of the responsibility of someone with the world in his hands. We can, but we don’t have to. Furthermore, a continuous maximum rotation effort hardly guarantees a good performance – quite the contrary…

Instead we can trust. In ourselves and in the universe. To trust relieves... to trust relaxes!

Recharging batteries in a turbo mode is at our disposal at any moment. It doesn’t require much time, nor television to hipnotize us, nor the beach nor the mountain. In fact it doesn’t require anything. It’s exactly when we no longer demand for anything, that the charger connects the plug in it’s fullest power. When we decide less, and almost without thinking. When we choose less, almost without choosing. It may be in traffic, on our way to work, in a simple lunch break. Short moments where everything gets simpler: observing without interfering.

When I think about this I always remember of “The diving bell and the butterfly”. A book/biographic movie that portraits a 43 years old man who suffered a stroke becoming trapped in a totally paralyzed body.  He can see, hear and think normally, without be able to lift a finger – a total passivity that he is obligated to accept. Mortifying, no doubt, but... on the other hand... how insightful! Almost liberating even! Wouldn’t it be a relief to realize that the world solves itself perfectly without our hard working intervention? In our daily life it doesn’t seem like it at all...

Well, the dinner table towel wouldn’t be in the same position, the kid would’t wear the right shirt, and maybe I would have slowed down a bit more in that curve, you drive so fast!... Yes, the world wouldn’t do exactly like it does when we involve serious efforts to influence how everything is done, but... so what?

Between the fever of influencing everything and the helplessness of not being able to control anything, there could be an adjustable balance each moment. Knowing that, when energy is lacking, resting resides in accepting more, in influencing less. When the world seems to demand so much of us that absorbs and exhausts us, resting resides in abdicated from interfering, to take a day off of that permanent job of controlling. It’s simply being, feeling the decisions being taken in automatic pilot, less chained to the importance of the end result details, felling the energy coming back.

Have you ever imagined an entire day trusting that the universe can choose for you? And, if  people bother you asking why you’re so quiet and peaceful, maybe hang a sign around your neck:  "I'm OK, just charging..."

Good rest!

Gonçalo Gil Mata