I got out of Bed at 9am today.
I walked out the door of my room, enjoyed a full cooked breakfast with coffee and juice, and then helped myself to a second plate of freshly sliced pineapple, among other tropical fruits, all with zero interruptions.
Then I walked shirtless back to my room via a quick dip in the pool. I did all this very slowly, almost as if it were in slow motion. And I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Life has been super busy lately, and by lately, I mean the last 6 months, culminating to the last 48 hours. I’ve been working hard on getting my book ready to be published, and with my involvement at church, and full time fatherhood inescapable, you know the rest of the story.
Externally life has been in top gear. Yet internally I’ve felt like my world has been in some kind of slow motion film. ‘Slow’ has never been me. In fact, “slow down” were literally the most common words ever spoken over me as a kid. At one job a few years back I earnt the nick-name “one speed”, and yep you guessed it, that speed was FLAT OUT.
Slow has to me always meant, well… slow. Maybe I still don’t get it. All I know is that up until recently, I didn’t enjoy ‘slow’ in any way, shape or form.
Externally or internally.
Today is the first day of our week long hiatus from routine life. Holidays. And it’s the first time Em & I will be away from the kids since God sent them to us. Seven days in total. Our anniversary was 2 days ago, 11 years on the 11th of March. We’ll never be able to re-visit that one again. It’s in the past now.
Slowing down externally is one thing, but internally? What does that look like?
After years of enjoying Adam Sandler movies, I gave-up on my man-crush with the release of the movie ‘Click’ a few years back. Even though ‘Click was a terrible movie, the power the main character possessed in the movie was something of incredible symbolism for many men.
Frustrated by the speed of life and the ever increasing amount of work, and equally decreasing amount of time to spend doing the things he really wants to do with his life, Adam Sandler’s character is presented with an option to begin ‘controlling’ his life.
Disturbing is the sound of one Christopher Walkin’s accentuated voice hitting my ears in this particular scene. Sandler meets Walkins’ character in a home-wares store back-room and returns home with a TV remote (sort of) ready to take control of his life.
Pausing, rewinding, fast-forwarding and (my favorite) muting the people around him, Sandler finds himself in an inevitable situation concluding that, should you ever actually possess some kind of magical remote control that enables such control to your life, sooner or later, you’ll wish you never had it in the first place.
I have learnt three other things in my life.
1. Control is an illusion.
2. Life will not be OK when you get everything the way you want it.
3. Slow must exist on the inside before it does on the outside.
There is absolutely nothing outside ourselves in this world that we can control. Yet many men spend pretty much every single waking hour of their lives doing just that, chasing ghosts in an attempt to achieve the un-achievable… full and total control.
Let me hand you some lotto numbers for tonight’s 50 Billion dollar life-jackpot.
CONTROL DOES NOT EXIST.
Whilst wasting such energy chasing it, we miss the one and only thing in this world that we can control.
Ourselves.
Slowing our internal worlds whilst the pace around us is ever grabbing gears, is probably the single most difficult thing a man can do. Aside for maybe asking for forgiveness.
How can one ‘get ahead’ when they are simply far too busy ‘getting by’?
I’ve been in this situation before, and I can tell you the anxiety and stress I felt during this season in my life was probably one of the greatest weights I’ve ever carried.
The answer lies not in getting the outside world to slow down, but the inside. And lads, please do not stop reading after the next line.
You need to ‘slow your soul’ down.
Like as in ‘Soul Surfer’? or like ‘Billy Joel’ kinda Soul?
You’re confused?
YES. YOU HAVE A SOUL.
And if you can learn to control your soul, then it will slow down. Life will become less like an Adam Sandler ‘Click’ experience and more like a Helen Hunt 'Twister' scene in slow motion.
You know the one at the end of the film when there is nothing left and all their life’s work is up in the air and all their standing in the middle of a very large storm just staring up in complete joy & satisfied accomplishment.
Well that’s the soul state we’re aiming for. When all your life’s work is up in the air like a scene from a Helen Hunt movie, and you are just looking on in slow-motion, completely over-joyed that it is, just exactly what it is.
A beautiful mess.