Need For Relaxation

We are living in an age of hurry, haste, tension, speed, and frantic competition. We hurl ourselves through life at a breathless pace, trying to keep up with the people who are trying to keep up with the Joneses. But is it really worth it? To know the true joy of work one must know how to be intense and relaxed at the same time. These days young professionals in mad pursuit of material success have forgotten How to relax without being lax, to excel at work, many others, at play; but few know how to induce playfulness into work, and some fruitful work into leisure.

This is why an occasional break from our daily routine is necessary in our lives. At least once in a while, it is necessary to drop all calculations, jettison all blueprints for self-improvement and simply be yourself. This helps your inner well-being. Such breaks help the enormous expansion and enrichment of one’s being. Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value and worth will never be known. Improve them, refine them and perfect them and they will become the brightest gems in a life of positivity.

A distinguished explorer who spent a couple of years among the savages of the upper Amazon once attempted a forced march through the jungle. The party made extraordinary progress for the first two days, but on the third morning, when it was time to start, he found all the natives sitting on leave.”They are waiting,” the chief of the natives explained to the explorer; “they cannot move further until their souls leave caught up with their bodies.”

I can think of no better illustration of our own plight today. Is there no way of letting our souls, so to say, catch up with our bodies? Man does not live by work alone. There is such a thing as ‘sacred leisure’, the cultivation of which is now unfortunately neglected. Leisure is the womb of all fruitful creativity. Aristotle said,” The aim of education is the wise use of leisure.” Creative and positive use if leisure is a real test of culture, refinement, and civilization. Only in an environment of affluence and leisure floats the intangible dust of creative ideas, the raw material of fashioning fine literary and artistic creations. A colony of busy ants or bees will never create a Parthenon or a Taj Mahal. Leisure is required not only for creativity but also to savor the simple celebrates the beauty of the simple pleasure of life:

This excerpt is taken from the Book: The Wisdom & Power of Positive Living