Today's quotation:

Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along.  This applies to play as well as work.  A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine.  No more busy work.  No more hiding from success.  Leave time, leave space, to grow.  Now.  Now!  Not tomorrow!

Og Mandino

Today's Meditation:

It's so easy for me to get caught up in menial tasks that it's almost scary.  I can start doing something almost useless and end up spending much more time at it than I ever intended or desired.  These days, though, I do my best to make these things a conscious decision and not to spend my time on things that simply don't matter to me or to anyone else.  When I want to relax, I read or meditate or simply relax and listen to soft music.  These things add to my life by keeping me relaxed and focused.

"A slight change in my routine" can help me to do things that are not necessarily productive-- for we don't always need to be productive-- but that are beneficial to us in many ways.  We can learn and grow and treat ourselves well simply by changing a few habits.  I used to spend lunch breaks trying to write, but I soon learned that I wasn't at all in a writing mood during lunch.  So I turned to reading and found out that my change in habits was very beneficial to me.

Likewise, turning off the TV at night has given me several more hours each day of doing other things that I like more than watching TV programs, and that are more beneficial to me.

Our time on this planet is very short.  Somehow we're taught that trivial pursuits are desirable-- we even reward the possession of trivial knowledge on our game shows and quiz shows.  But how can we learn other things, such as important processes and ways to help other people and make their lives more positive?

Nobody expects us to be always productive, never to relax.  But there's a difference between relaxing and wasting time with menial tasks-- and it's up to us to be sure that what we're doing is helping us to grow and mature and become the people we're meant to be.

For further thought:

We are responsible for what we are, and we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves.  If what we are now has been the result of our past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.

Swami Vivekananda

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