Slow is fast?
Fast is slow, slow is fast, it is the training mantra of special forces around the world not because it sounds cool and Buddhist like, but because it works in the real world, it saves lives and improves performance and efficiency. It is not complicated advice, that is it's beauty, you can think it without saying it, you can know something that is this simple, the working memory of the mind is about seven items and for it to really stick two is better, fast, slow, is all the trigger you need once you have internalise the experience of being fast, slow. Simple works in a repeatable pattern, so why do so many people believe that happiness is complicated, that being a better version of yourself is hard when it is that simple always triumphs.
It is natural to look for complicated solutions because the world around us is not understandable, it happens without our involvement, the universe will carry on doing it's things for a long time after we are gone as it did before we got here, it dances according to rules of physics that we still do not fully comprehend despite thousands of years of study. It is against this dark, unknown background that we live our lives, and because of the scenery we think we are also complicated, that we are unknowable and maybe we are if we try to see past our consciousness, but we can be aware of everything that is knowable to us and it is more than we can imagine. To do so you have to be aware without distraction, it is simple and yet incredibly difficult to do, and fast is slow, meditation is a slow habit but by being slow, you can make very fast progress, five minutes a day is so much better than one day of eight hours and less painful.
When we accept that the direction that we should be pursuing is simpler not more complicated, it at least gives us the chance of dealing with manageable problems. If you think everything depends on everything else, and that you do more harm by doing something rather than nothing, you will end up paralyzed by indecision and inaction. It is said that anger is the worst emotion except for nothing, we are creatures of time and effect, we do and we see the result, and then we do something better, if we stop, we cease to be human and just passengers instead. That is why anger is better, it does something, and that is always better than nothing, nothing can change without action, so take an action even if it is slowly.
As slowly does it, it changes things, a daily habit will always have an effect over enough time, and it does not matter how small, even reading for five minutes a day means after thirty day you are now a reader (an incurable disease in some countries) who reads which is what a reader is, and once you are a reader to stop would be to give something up and humans hate to do that, which a fault and something beautiful as well. The strange thing is that it is much easier to increase your reading to twenty, thirty, even an hour once you are a reader than it is to become a reader in the first place, everything is easy once you practise and build habits, the natural athlete is always the one who has practised the most.
And we are able to imagine great things for ourselves, however we always want to rush to get to the finishing line because that is what makes the journey worthwhile, we make it complicated, there is the story that we have that we want to play out, so it has to linked to each other to have meaning and purpose, but none of that is true. If it was there would be no hobbies, no delight in the moment, no joy in falling on our bottoms when ice skating before people start taking it seriously, we want to rush to the achievement part rather than enjoy the practise for it's own worth. There is always a joy in failure if you can look past the complications of your own emotions, pride and ego, it is the cosmic joke that nothing matter but everything is important.
It what happens when you know when to be slow and when to be fast, slowing down your frame of reference to the moment that you are in, what you are doing right in this moment and giving nothing else your attention is the action of slowing down to the present. By slowing down you are able to do the one thing that you want to do fast, it might seem slow to you because you are focused just on one thing, one action, the one after the last one and before the next one and nothing else that is the power of slowing down, you can be focused and be present. It works in a repeatable and predictable way, because you have practised it until it has become a habit of doing and thinking, fast, slow, is the mantra that no longer has to be said, it is an effective military habit because of that slow simplicity, it becomes a way of moving through the world and it self reinforcing because of the results it has, and anything that works and can be explained is wisdom that is always worth pursing. If you can explain something you have understood it, so whenever you encounter an idea, see if you can explain it to yourself in a single sentence and discard the rest, complicated might be interest, but it is the simple things that stay with you.
It better to learn slowly, focus on one thing at time to improve in, you have time to develop, so choose carefully what you want but always do something. By taking thing one day at a time, one habit at a time, you make thing simple, you succeed or fail one day at a time, you either improved or you did not, pass, fail, a simple mark, and if you think this is ridiculous, I want so much more, how long has it been since you got a gold star, how days by your own complicated standards have you fail for. So why not be kind to yourself for a month, and have a month of easy gold stars and see if you are happier, just go slow, because the ultimate goal is to seek up on happiness as it turns out that the only way to sneak up on it is to choose to, by being slow and observing your own moments of happiness, you are able to see that happiness is a decision not a destination, just approach it slowly, it is so simple that it might spook you and make you run away fast.
