A good lesson on the beach

Last week, as I write, I took a leaf out of the book of a two year old boy with regards to being in the moment, relaxing and enjoying the present as fully as possible.

I was at the beach, sitting in my beach chair and watching this little boy running in and out of the sea trying to fill a big hole with the water he was trying to catch in a cold drink can.

He utterly loved running into the water, almost rolling into it, because he barely managed to stay on his two feet, then scooping up the water and running and stumbling back to the hole he made in the sand and just depositing something like three drops of water into the hole. He thoroughly enjoyed doing this for a long time, and he kicked and screamed when his mom eventually tried to stop him because it was getting late and she wanted to take him home.

Before I went to the beach I already thought of what else I could have done at home, and pondered what I could have prepared for the coming week by staying at home.  On my way to the beach my head was full of what else needed to be done—meetings to attend, activities to organise, and so on—and I was feeling all the tensions that go with such a state of mind.

So just watching this small boy gave me so much pleasure; it took me out of my world and into his carefree, relaxing, in-the-moment world of gratification.  What he was doing showed me how to let go, to relax and enjoy the moment.  Why is this an important lesson?

This habit of constantly doing without being, working without relaxing and busyness throughout the day, comes from our notion that relaxing is wasting time, and we therefore want to do more and more giving us the idea that we are achieving more. Nothing could be further from the truth. When we relax and enjoy, we rejuvenate and we re-energise and we prepare ourselves to be able to achieve better the next time. As some leadership experts would say, we sharpen our saw.

There is a story told of two woodcutters who went into the forest early in the morning. Both started high up in a tree and started sawing down their trees at the same time.

The one woodcutter noticed how the other woodcutter would go down to the ground at regular intervals, come up again, saw for a while, go back down and come up again and so it continued throughout the day. He, on the other hand, remained in his tree, working hard throughout the day cutting down his tree.

At the end of the day the woodcutter noticed that his friend who went down at regular intervals had managed to cut down much more of the tree than he had. He was very surprised by this and asked his friend how he had managed to cut down more of his tree than he could, seeing that he left the tree so many times to go down to  the ground.

His friend replied to him that every time he went down, he sharpened his saw.

What is in this story for us? Doing more does not mean being more. Let’s take regular time out of our busy lives and be quiet, relax and enjoy. It revives us.

We must not depend so much on our own efforts alone, but be guided by God’s Spirit to take us to fresh and green pastures where he gives us repose. Near restful waters he will lead us, to revive our drooping spirits.