Thursday, June 10, 1999

Just breathe

Most compact disc players have the ability to skip quickly through a musical selection, playing a brief sample for a fraction of a second and then skipping ahead to another sample. It is a quick and easy way to locate the passage you want to hear. You can sample an entire 47-minute album in about 95 seconds. But it is a terrible way to listen to the music.

So often we try to live in a similar mode, briefly sampling this, skipping ahead to that, arriving somewhere just in time to leave. We cover a lot of ground, but we hurry right past the beauty of the song.

Consider for a moment your breathing. Every few seconds you inhale. Then you exhale. You cannot do tomorrow’s breathing today. You cannot live today from the breathing you did yesterday. You must breathe now, and again, in a steady and unceasing rhythm.

All of life has a rhythm and a pace. When you try to outrun it, you miss it. Making life faster does not make it better. Today is plenty; right now is always enough. Tomorrow will come in good time. Until it does, live the depth of today. This moment is a beautiful symphony. Don’t miss out on it by skipping ahead.

— Ralph Marston

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Copyright ©1999 Ralph S. Marston, Jr. All Rights Reserved. The Daily Motivator is provided for your personal, non-commercial use only. Other than personal sharing, please do not re-distribute without permission.