I am constantly trying to remember.
When I was a young girl, my mother would echo the mishaps of my clumsy, mosquito-bitten legs with the patiently metered words: “Slow & Careful.”
Slowing down often feels impossible when attempted in one fell swoop, so instead I meditate on the mantra: “Be gentle.” Be gentle with yourself and be gentle with the world.
I’m finding that being gentle necessitates slowing down. When you slow down, you appreciate, when you appreciate, you experience gratitude in the quotidian, and when you experience gratitude, you discover joy—all of which is a complex unraveling of a simple skein. You are happier.
Being gentle makes my mind a butterfly net. I catch thoughts formed in anger and frustration on open palms, forgive them, try again, and set them free.
Distraction has so proliferated our lives that we are utterly unaware of its influence.
When you watch the clock wishing you were anywhere but here, catch yourself. If you spend your life wishing for the time, the place, the situation you believe will make you happy, you will wish your life away. Happiness never leaves us; it is a light left always on. Choose joy, choose the light—it has already chosen you.
Move into each moment and you will always be home.