Skip to main content

The pace of life

As we begin the Christmas season around this beautiful world, a period of reflection often occurs. Christmas (for most of the western world) is a time when we think about the year gone by, and about how far we have come along the road, and then we turn to the new year and begin to think about how far we are going to go and what we are going to do with our time next year.

We all live life at different paces, sometimes we move quickly, at other times more slowly. We each choose how fast we want to move, making decisions that alter our progress and that sometimes take us in different directions. Sometimes those decisions help us gather momentum, at other times we lose it. That got me to thinking about physics...I was never really any good at school physics, I think the highest exam mark I ever got was around 40% despite the attempts of some very good teachers!, and the lowest was somewhere in the teens ....now a few years on from school, the querky reality is how much physics influences my thinking about the life journey. Physics has a strong correlation to philosophy. Momentum, velocity and resistance are all terms you'll find in every physics text book - it's interesting that we are taught physics as a science not as philosophy, because so much of Einstein's, Newton's and other scientists theories can be applied to philosophical thought and life in general.

As you go through the last 5 or 10 sleeps until Santa is with you, think about which decisions made last year have resulted in greater momentum and those which have met resistance, and think about the pace at which you want to live next year. Begin the year with the end in mind. Paint a picture of the 3 things you want to achieve by the time Santa appears again, in another 365 days or so.

If you're anything like me, you'll achieve a lot more than just those 3!

Enjoy Christmas, and may 2010 bring you peace

Comments

Anonymous said…
the pace of life ...interesting...if you stand still... does it flow through you... is it all in the mind? Does time slow down when you meditate? Your body thinks so. Does that mean the pace of your life is determined by your state of mind?
Anonymous said…
previous comment left by Dad

Popular posts from this blog

Pathways

The other day I found a piece of paper that I'd created with my best friend a few years ago, and it reminded me of how simple things are when we want them to be. We travel along our path, experiencing this and that - hearing and seeing this and that, and along that pathway we make decisions. Those decisions keep us moving, either in the same direction or in another. Like travelling along a road, we sometimes know our way, we recognise the road - it's a well travelled road as they say - we know where we are going because we have been there before. At other times we see signposts and respond to what they are telling us - we react to them and alter our direction based on what they say. At other times, we register signposts to give us confidence that we are on the right track, we experience 'deja vu' or coincidences we just get that intuitive feeling that we are moving in exactly the right direction. I think this simple little topic is going into my book. Have a gre...

Phronesis

Phronesis  is the capability to consider the mode of action in order to deliver change, especially to enhance the quality of life. It dates back as a theory or philosophy to Aristotle... Practical wisdom, applied to everyday situations, leads thought and leads people..

The value of time

This is a quote by Thomas Oxley in November 1830, from a book on Planispheres and astronomy. Oxley was a reknowned pioneer and spent a lifetime writing his book. Humanity's passion for saving time dates back centuries.. more recently, in the 1970's the internet and PCs were heralded as a means of saving us time and allowing us all to work less and accomplish more - has new technology lived up to this expectation? We certainly accomplish a lot more, although do we work less? If not, is it because in reality we all live to work?