PAUSE, CAN YOU?

 

 

Sometimes we must pause, retracting the claws we use to climb towards success, embracing the moment without design or distress. Otherwise we will continue to be anxious and thankless, annoyed daily and hard unnecessarily on ourselves. Unfortunately, however, most of us confuse pausing with passivity.

So we work without rest thinking that doing so will help us to accomplish our goals faster. Yet this logic is toxic, personally, emotionally and relationally, leaving our spouses to wonder and our children to watch as we work ourselves out of meaningful relationships with them because of an undisciplined desire to provide for them.

Moreover, in refusing to pause we forfeit the power of renewal, which would help us achieve our goals by giving us greater clarity and more energy for our tasks. Yet we choose to labor beleaguered by fatigue because of some misguided notion of self-determination. It’s okay to be determined, driven, even, but neither annuls the need to be renewed, to pause and reflect rather than to push and act indefinitely (often detrimentally).

In this regard, pausing isn’t passivity, complacency or indifference. It simply means that we recognize the need to suspend our efforts without accusing ourselves of abandoning them. Besides, we won’t arrive any faster than we do no matter how we construe our efforts. So, relax, reflect and let time do what only it can. Your loved ones will be glad you did!