What are you rushing about for, might one ask in a
friendly way. Why did you dash out of the house this morning as if a
tiger were after you? Why have you been racing about all day like a
neurotic grasshopper? Why do you charge along subway platforms like
cavalry? What is the idea of writhing with impatience when your phone
call isn't answered inside of three seconds? Why do you sometimes finish
people's sentences for them and "take the words out of their
mouths"? Why do you risk your neck dashing into the street thirty
seconds before the green light makes it safe?
What is it all about? You appear to be going
somewhere--but where? Surely all this frenzied rushing should have a
logical objective--but has it?
Actually, I think you will find that it has not. I
think if you analyze your movements for one whole day you will discover that
three-quarters of your activities have really been wasted motion. You
could have done a better day's work with much more profit to yourself and
others with about 25 percent of the energy, quietly and scientifically
applied--besides going to bed with healthy fatigue instead of nervous
prostration.
Where are you going? Well, I do not know about you,
but I do know exactly where most people are going--to the cemetery. We know
that unless we regenerate we shall die some day.
Now people who are regenerating do not rush, because part
of the regeneration treatment is to cultivate poise, calm, and patience.
So all the rushing and dashing and trampling on other people is just in order
to get--to the cemetery. Hardly seems worth it, does it?
Walk along any busy street and study the rushing, surging
throng, and note that they are all rushing somewhere--to the graveyard.
Of course, the route will be a circuitous one, they will loop round thousands
of miles first--but that is the goal to which they are rushing.
At the entrance to a large cemetery near New York a
notice says, with unconscious irony, "one way traffic only."
Now, is it good enough to wear yourself out, undermine
your health, and worry all the joy out of your life just to go off and be
buried?
Take it easy. Enjoy life reasonably as you go
along. You are really in eternity now, and in eternity no wise person
hurries. God does not want us to die. It is we who kill ourselves
with hurry and worry. If we understood God's laws and applied them, we
could live very long lives on this earth in strong vigorous health, and then,
when there was no more to learn here, transcend consciously. Some day the
race will learn this. Meanwhile, take it easy and trust in God.
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