From Inner Peace Now

Nothing in nature is hurried. Nothing seems interested in achievement, and yet great things are achieved. The dishes are not asking that they be washed quicker, your body is not demanding it be somewhere else in time, your work is not begging for you to finish so that you may get on to the next thing.

We have made up so much stress and worry, and then believed it so that it seems real, but really it is just imagined. Whatever you are doing, is anything else begging that you hurry up and finish it? Isn’t it actually just an old voice from the past, an old, mad voice that itself was in pain, taught by others to be the same, telling you that you should hurry up and get on with the next thing?

I have heard that it is a Buddhist practice to do certain things at certain times of the day, without the ambition to complete the task. That can be the most painful thing – the idea that you have to complete something, do it perfectly, achieve something, or do so many things to reach a desired outcome. But action can occur, without striving to finish it. And miraculously, everything becomes easier, more enjoyable, and of a far higher quality. And things are then easier to finish, because you are no longer burdened by the idea that you have to get somewhere else to feel better again.