Mindfulness

Have you ever done something you enjoy so much that you are completely absorbed into the activity and lost track of time? Before you know it you could have spent the whole day doing that activity and even skipped your lunch. This is what happen when you focus on the 'now' and practice the Buddhist approach of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is in fact a very simple thing to do and yet most of us fail to practice it because of our unsettling mind which always deviate to negative thoughts and trivial daily concerns. To practice mindfulness, we just need to be aware of the present moment without judging any of our actions. 

I was paving my house crossover last weekend and learned a few valuable lessons along the way. The task looked daunting initially because it is quite a substantial area to be paved. I had to level the ground with rake, shoveled away excess earth and created a gentle slope at the same time. It is a challenging site as the land slopes in two directions. After finished the preliminary earthworks in about 2 hours, then only I could start lay the first pave. And laying the first few paves was like taking eternity. It was slow and I had a large area to fill. Anyway, I continued to focus on hammering down every single pave with my rubber mallet and this action somehow managed to put me into a Zen like situation that before long I found myself totally absorbed into the activity. I hammered down each pave with a peaceful mind. I did not think about anything and certainly did not allow any worries to trouble me. You see when you are totally preoccupied with a task, negative thoughts are unable to invade your mind. It was indeed a wonderful experience and I managed to get much more than expected done that day.

If we ever want success in any area of our lives, it is important that we must do everything wholeheartedly. Focus on productivity, outcome, positivity and stay away from negative thinking pattern or worries. There may be some people around us who wish to see us fail for their own benefits. For example, your colleague does not want to see you excel in your career because that may diminish her role in the office. People do all sorts of things to protect themselves and for their own interests. This is so true especially in the workplace. Very seldom you would find genuine people who are willing to help you without thinking of getting anything back in return. Knowing that these people do exist and we can't do anything about it, why don't we just make peace with it and put 100% of our energy onto the task at hand. That way, we can enjoy our work without being interrupted by hostile acts towards us. And since we are so focus in whatever that is being assigned to us, our work will turn out to be so good that it speaks for itself in negating any criticism that may have arisen.