No matter how much I was in a hurry, I didn't have time. Other methods of dealing with fuss. The psychologist Sokolova Anna Viktorovna answers the question

Carl Honore

No fuss: How to stop rushing and start living

Miranda, Benjamin and Susanna

The point of life is not to live it as quickly as possible.

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic copy of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and in corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

Foreword

Age of Haste

A person is born and marries, lives and dies in the midst of such a frantic fuss that, it would seem, how can one not go crazy here?

William Dean Howells

Summer 1985, hot afternoon. I am young, traveling around Europe, stuck in a square somewhere on the outskirts of Rome: there is no return bus. His tardiness doesn't bother me at all. I don't run up and down the sidewalk, I don't call the trucking company to get it right, no. I put on my headphones, stretched out on a bench, and listen to a song by Simon and Garfunkel about the benefits of slowing down and enjoying the moment. Every detail of that scene is imprinted in my memory: two boys are kicking a ball near a medieval fountain, tree branches stretch along a stone wall, an old widow woman carries vegetables for dinner in a shopping bag.

Fast forward 15 years and everything changes dramatically. Noisy Rome's Fiumicino Airport, and I, a foreign correspondent, are on a plane home to London. I don’t lazily pick stones, I don’t relax on the bench - I rush to the gate, just not aloud cursing everyone who slowly trudges ahead, blocking my path. I don’t have a cheap player with me, and I don’t have time to listen to music: I explain myself on a mobile phone with an editor who is waiting for me thousands of kilometers from Rome.

Boarding gate. I'm at the back of a long line. What can you do in line? Nothing. Literally nothing. But I can't stand still. It is necessary to give the expectation at least the appearance of benefit: to distract from the expectation. I rustle with a newspaper. And then I came across an article that would eventually inspire me to write this book.

I stumbled upon the title: "A one-minute fairy tale." To help parents cope with their time-consuming responsibilities, classic fairy tales are compressed into one-minute voiced retelling. Such a summary of Hans Christian Andersen. I almost cried out, "Eureka!" At that time, every evening I was busy with my two-year-old son, who demanded a long fairy tale and that it be read slowly, with feeling, with sense, with arrangement. I slipped him books shorter and drove at full speed. Because of this, we quarreled. "Too fast!" - the kid was indignant or caught me already at the door with an exclamation: “I want another fairy tale!” I was partly ashamed of my own selfishness when I mercilessly curtailed my bedtime ritual like this, but I was itching to get down to business, dinner, e-mail, reading, bills, work, watching the news on TV. I couldn't bring myself to go for a long leisurely walk in the world of Dr. Seuss: it was taking too long.

So, at first glance, a series of fairy tales-minutes seemed to me an excellent solution to the problem: you can drive away ten such fairy tales before going to bed and still meet within a quarter of an hour - what would be better? I was already figuring out how long it would take to ship if I ordered a full set of CDs from Amazon, but then I was struck like a thunderbolt by the thought: “Am I completely crazy?” Wriggling like a snake, the queue crept closer and closer to the girls who check the ticket for the last time. I put down the newspaper and thought: I spend my whole life in the race, trying to squeeze some business into every hour. Scrooge, clocking all his time, striving to save where a minute, where at least a few seconds. And I'm not the only one. Everyone around - colleagues, friends, relatives - revolve in the same funnel.

In 1982, the American physician Larry Dossey coined the term "time neurosis", denoting a painful condition when it seems as if "time is running out, it is not enough, you need to press the pedals harder to keep up." The whole world is now suffering from this form of possession. The cult of speed reigns everywhere. And so, standing in line to board the plane, I thought about the question to which this book is devoted: why are we all fussing all the time? How to heal the obsession with time? Is it possible to slow down and do we need such an opportunity?

You will need

- CD player;
- CD with relaxing music;
- CD with your settings;
- privacy;
- comfortable clothes for meditation;
- scissors;
- aroma sticks;
- sedative teas with mint, lemon balm, chamomile.

Instruction

For 10-15 minutes, go into the inaccessible zone - turn off the TV, radio, turn off the phones. To hear yourself, you will need silence. And let the world wait!

Sit where you feel comfortable, straighten your back, relax. Make sure your body feels free and light. Close your eyes, take 5-6 deep breaths and exhalations. In the process of meditation, take in all the sounds, sensations, symbols, color spots and that may appear before your mind's eye.

Try to concentrate on the images, make them as vivid as possible, experience certain emotions, feel the picture. As far as possible, "turn off" your endless internal dialogue - those thoughts that are constantly spinning in your head throughout your life. The duration of each meditation will be from 3 to 5 minutes.

Create your own CD, burn the settings for your subconscious on it. For example, this may be statements that are necessary for the beauty and health of your body: “I am beautiful”, “My skin is filled with solar energy”, “I have healthy silky hair”, “I have a strong healthy heart”, “I "," I'm not in a hurry", "My body is as relaxed as possible", "My mind is clear of thoughts", "I don't think about anything", etc. Imagine that the principle of your head is the same as that of a CD player. "Throw away" from this player the old disc with the old "thoughts" about your physical body. Put a new affirmation disc in the player and listen to them, smoothly and slowly repeating each phrase aloud. All this time, imagine that a bright sun is shining above your head.

Move on to the second Puppet meditation, which allows you to get rid of people who seek to control you, painful addictions and addictions. For work, use the image of a puppet, remember the puppeteer who controls its movements. This puppet is you, controlled by something or someone, including your own beliefs, thoughts, negative addictions. At the beginning of meditation, identify those people or addictions that prevent you from living. Imagine yourself as a puppet, which someone controls, pulls the strings from above. This someone stands above you and sets the threads in motion. Recognize who or what it is. Feel the desire to be free, to break away from it. Take scissors in hand. Imagine yourself happily cutting the threads. Feel empowered and completely free. Move freely and easily, now you can do it yourself.

Do the third meditation: "Sail of Fortune." Imagine that you are sailing on a yacht in the sea of your life. You are sailing through wealth, success, and abundance. Suddenly the wind changes, you find yourself in a calm. Look around, evaluate the sea surface, determine where the new wind will blow from. Turn your yacht around to catch the new wind. Continue moving towards your goal - a calm, peaceful life without fuss. Feel that you are in control of your life.

Conducting such meditations 3-4 times a week, you will very soon notice that haste, fuss, fears and insecurities leave your life, and calmness and peace come to replace them.

note

Avoid stimulating caffeinated drinks. Brew herbal teas with mint, lemon balm, chamomile, adding honey and lemon to them.

Do not take on too many obligations, remember that it is impossible to please everyone anyway. Find time for different types of recreation.

Useful advice

During meditation, use soft music for relaxation, light incense sticks with aromas that promote relaxation.

The world is accustomed to living at high speeds: ever faster modes of transport are being built, fast communications are being carried out, human activity is also accelerating. As if there are not enough hours in the day, as if there is no time to just stop and enjoy life. Slow people are reproached with contempt, driven, accustomed from childhood to this race.

Technological progress, which began in the 19th and 20th centuries, has now led to the fact that everything around is being updated too quickly. Newly released gadgets become obsolete literally before our eyes, more and more modern and fast computers, cars, devices appear. The consumer society and technological progress make people get involved in this race, now a person's self-esteem often depends on a more modern gadget in his pocket. Provoking constant purchases and replacing the old with the new makes companies update their assortment at a rapid pace, and people rush to earn as much money as possible for the next purchase.

Companies work

Hence the second reason for the rush of life: in the pursuit of quick profits, companies encourage the work of smart businessmen who quickly fit in with business, make deals, speak and think quickly. They are smiling, adventurous, active and very fast. This model of behavior becomes exemplary for all other employees, such people are quickly promoted and encouraged. Naturally, employers and subordinates want to follow this particular model of behavior. Who likes to keep at work a taciturn quiet person who takes a long time to deal with documents and works slowly? In the vast majority of modern companies, such behavior is unacceptable.

Vicious circle of haste

A modern person spends a lot of time at his work, and the possibilities of a big city provide him with many temptations. Such a person wants not only to work the whole day, but to have time and have fun in the evening. This is also where the habit of rushing comes from: driving faster from work across the city, quickly finding entertainment or doing things at home, eating quick food, and in the morning, not having time after nightly gatherings, quickly fly to the office. Breaking out of such a circle is almost impossible, especially if this way of life has become habitual. This is not only the size of modern cities, which take a huge amount of time to travel home from work, but also the problem of poor

What or who can limit your life? Only you yourself! Only yours internal blocks, negative attitudes, stereotypes of thinking and fears - frames and limitations.

Well, how about time? Does it depend on the individual?

BUT a life does it depend on the individual? Life is the time allotted for being in the body!

People are accustomed to perceive the course of life as something beyond the control of the will. They think that time is a prison from which one cannot escape. But not voluntary or is it captivity?

Is it not in vain that you rush and fuss, trying to “catch up” with time, to use it to the maximum?

Read an article on how to get rid of rush and fuss, live relaxed, not afraid that time is running out.

Fussing, hurrying, hurrying and worrying about the transience of time are people who fear be late. Limitation in the minds of all fussy people - fear fail, waste time. It is the fear that life will end.

Many people are afraid that their time is running out forever. That is why they are in his "captivity".

Man afraid of the speed of time adjusts under the events taking place in life, while a person free from these internal restrictions, on the contrary, adjusts life for yourself. He adjusts the events myself.

Try affirmations:

I manage my time.
My time is up to me.
I do everything on time.
I'm not in a hurry, so I have time everywhere.

What does it mean to be the master of time? Example. If you determine the most convenient day and hour when the meeting will take place, or in the case when it cannot take place at all without you, being late is excluded. The meeting time is up to you. You are the owner.

It's great that No circumstances beyond human control! Even if they seem as such at first glance.

One more example. People who are always late for work like to complain about traffic problems; they assure that they do not affect the frequency and accuracy of his arrival. But is that an excuse? There are many ways not to depend on transport, from leaving the house 15 minutes earlier to getting your own bike/car. You can do something even more radical - move closer to work to go there on foot, or change your occupation (after all, you are rarely late for your favorite job, but you don’t want to come to your unloved one at all!).

Life needs to be planned. But plan not for someone, but for yourself.

Don't plan what you are not want to practice! Just don't do what you don't like.

Determine what You want to do for a day/week/month/year/life and do it. Arrange the order of things as you like and want.

Do you think: “If not me, no one else will do what I don’t want to do”? You are deeply mistaken. Everything is quite the opposite. Precisely because you are doing something, no one else is going to do it.

learn delegate powers, if you are afraid to let things take their course and let the situation be resolved without your participation.

Doing what you don't like is a waste of time. But it is precisely such classes that take place in a hustle and bustle. Because they do not want to do, they irritate and anger.

Only you decide on what waste your life.

The one who plans the time stops fussing reasonable:

doesn't take on too much
does not do the work for someone,
does not want to do everything at once,
leaves time for rest
does what he loves
appreciates what he does.

Boldly and confidently manage their time businessmen, people working for themselves. Be honest, can you be successful by continuing to work “for your uncle”? Would you like to be a person who independently determines the amount of time allotted for work and personal schedule?

But, even when working for someone, receiving tasks “from above”, it is still possible and necessary manage time.

Being in the position of a “slave” (it doesn’t matter where you work - at home on the housework or at work) and not wanting to leave this role (because if you wanted to, you would already have left), you can do yourself a huge favor by follow recommendation #3.

Realize - when a person tries to get ahead of time(hurries and fusses) he spends a lot of his life energy. Haste takes away energy, and hence time and life, thereby bringing closer the moment of its completion.

Fearing life, many are in a hurry to say goodbye to it.

Do not waste the energy of life on the fuss caused by fear! Spend it on pleasure and happiness. Enjoy what you do, if you have already decided to do it contrary to your desires or following them.

Example. If you are a domestic “slave”, who independently manages the household, fearing that her husband will leave if he is “strained” with housework, and the children will consider him an “evil mother”, there are two options:

continue in the same spirit, but then do not fuss and do not complain - you yourself have shouldered this responsibility;
stop doing the work for others, let them develop and be Adults.

The opposite method

If you are one of those people who are more motivated "from something" rather than “something”, use statistics. People who are always in a hurry, living in constant fuss and anxiety:

get sick more often
more prone to stress
dissatisfied with personal (and sexual) life,
irritable
conflicts,
pessimistic
perceived by others as unreliable, not worthy of trust and respect.

If you want to live happily - reduce the pace of your activity. This is especially true for women. Modern girls are so accustomed to living in the pace of the world, imprisoned for men, that they have forgotten about their nature. But the feminine essence passive. Femininity is slowness and smoothness, grace and peace, and not a race and the desire to win at any cost.

If you are late for something, allow yourself such a “luxury” - not to worry about being late. Feelings won't help.

The one who is in a hurry is late, because he himself adjusts the time, organizing the chaos of fuss around him.

In addition, during the rush, the probability of making mistake increases many times.

Have you noticed that on quality Do jobs always take longer? By doing quickly, people often do poorly, make many mistakes. Isn't it better to do less, but better? The choice is yours!

Express Methods

If you already late:

tune in in a calmly positive way. The world won't collapse (you won't get fired from your job/a guy will leave you, etc.) if you come later. But if you come in a bad mood and provoke a conflict ...
Believe in the fact that everything is always on time and events add up for the good. It is impossible to know for sure where you are late. Many people missed the planes, which subsequently crashed.
Do not think that you are always late person. You are a person with a bad habit of rushing. And the present moment great opportunity stop fussing. Just stop doing it.

What unites these three points? The ability to pull yourself together at the right moment.

self-control, the ability to remain calm, control emotions and thoughts - that's what you need to study. This is what every situation in which there is haste and fuss teaches. It is given for this, to finally teach you not to rush and not to fuss.

There is never enough time to do the job right, but there is always time to redo it.

Do what you do thoroughly, so that you never come back to it. Even if you are scolded for slowness by other hurried people. In a word, do it conscientiously, and then you will not have to hastily correct what was done hastily. True, there are exceptions to this rule - demanding and unsatisfied people prone to perfectionism - the boss, spouse or your mother :)

2 step

The one who does not hurry anywhere succeeds

Do you think that the faster you run, the more you can do? You succeed when you do everything on time. And for this you need to learn how to organize yourself, doing what is important in the first place, regardless of mood, weather and other objective and subjective factors.

3 step

There is nothing beyond the present moment

Do one thing at a time. Do what you are doing now. This means that if, for example, you are reading a book and thinking about someone, then it is better for you to put the book aside and think about your thought, because there will be no use from such reading. Think about this. When are you fully present in the present? When you are interested in what you are doing. Then the thoughts of strangers in the head do not climb.

4 step

Peace, only peace...

It happens that you need to do several things at the same time or be in several places at once. Consciously calm down and move from one thing to another. If you are nervous and “smack the fever”, then you will surely fill up everything - the fuss only prevents you from working quickly and efficiently.

5 step

Gotta take the time to smell the roses

Be sure to take breaks throughout the day. At least for 3 - 5 minutes, take a break from your super-important work. Because if you have a rest, the work will go better, because the forces, including the mental ones, must be restored, in other words, to give the brains and nerves a rest.

6 step

Meal time is sacred

If you are running while eating, stop; if you are standing, sit down. Take 10-15 minutes to eat in peace. It is very difficult, especially for an office worker, to wean oneself from the habit of doing something, reading or searching on the Internet while eating. Show respect for your body and health. Perhaps a leisurely meal can be accompanied by a leisurely conversation in a friendly atmosphere.

7 step

Not only are you hardworking, what are you working on?

Sometimes it would be nice to stop and think - what do I spend time on, for what or whom, where do I run all the time, how important is it and will it matter after a while? It would be nice to accustom yourself to the so-called philosophical attitude to life: if you have time - well, if you haven’t had time - so be it. Despite the clear achievements in the field of positive thinking, some things are beyond our control, so it will be very useful to develop the habit of accepting them as they are.

- take care of yourself: nothing is more important than your health, especially your inner state
- haste is a mechanical habit - only a conscious attitude to life can cure it. In a hurry, we can miss the most important thing. Forget about the request of a friend, do not talk to someone who needs our attention, ignore your poor health. Please think about it.