Thursday Seeds | Remember the Schedule

Meditation practice is about refraining from the monkey mind thoughts, that sometimes are not even your own, to come back to what is called the present moment. They could be  things that you should be doing, the things that you did that you could have done better, the cat in the other room that needs to stop clawing up the couch, etc. 

The idea is to let go of all the other things, concentrate on what is right here, right now. This moment only. 

In keeping a schedule, it is a similar practice though not exactly the same. There are time points in the day, we call them appointments, that need to be heeded as well as other items that need to be accomplished.

Some light examples could be prayers and morning devotions, brushing teeth, taking vitamins or healthy morning rituals.  If you do them at another time of the day, they still count but do they count as much as in the planned sequence of a schedule?

What if you forget one of them? You are in a hurry, you miss one. You aren’t in a hurry, you just remain in your inner world and miss it. Which is worse? Debatable for another blog topic.

Come back to the schedule. Come back to the present moment. How are you? Pretty good on energy. When is the next time moment? About 9:00 AM. Don’t stress about it, just gage your time. Will you get this thing done by then? If you can see it from the outside of stress, you can better manage your time for the next planned day or activity.

How long does it take to set up the room for the meeting? Could you ask for help to shorten the time? Most of these questions we don’t even ask ourselves. We do it in our head with no words at all. If there is a stress point in life, maybe not even related, that is when tail spins happen. It’s also when steady schedule thinking comes in handy. The waters calm deliberately when you are able to pay attention to these seemingly small things on a regular basis. They become foot steps one after another and further into a long trail run. 

Did you stumble? Pick yourself back up again and start again.  The other beauty and curse of this one is that you have to do it again tomorrow. This a battle for each day no matter how long you’ve been doing it. The things that trip you up, get smarter like you do.  

When does it end? When you are dead. Are you 80? It’s still a thing.  When we accept that, then we can get on with it.

Back to center, if you are doing yoga. 

Back to the present moment if you are doing meditation. 

Back to the schedule if you are doing life.