I always get excited about festival days. I love to do a special Pooja and cook an elaborate meal. No one enforces any rules or rituals in my home. It is completely up to me to choose whether I want to push myself on such special days.
Today, being Tamil New Year's Day and a working day here in Bengaluru, I decided this morning to take it slow and not get too hyper to do multiple tasks.
The earlier me would have woken up earlier, did some Yoga practice or walking, taken a bath, did Pooja, and cooked a meal all in the morning before 10 AM.
Given that the Universe is hinting to me to slow down and go easy, I decided to change my default patterns of doing.
It is not just the desire to do multiple things, but trying to do them all at once within the limited time through multitasking, running around, not asking for help, and secretly wishing for Hermione's time-turner.
If there are 3 tasks that I would want to do and only an hour is available, I end up pushing myself and doing all 3 in a hurry and not enjoying the process.
This morning, I decided that this is not the way I want to operate anymore. If there are 3 tasks that I would like to do and only an hour is available, I'm gonna choose 1 of them, make peace with it and either drop or reschedule the other 2.
I woke up at 6:20 this morning. I was engrossed reading a book till 8:15 and I chose to skip Yoga practice. I then started cooking a slightly elaborate festive meal and wrapped up by 9:30. I decided to reschedule the Pooja routine for the evening. Around 5 PM, I made a paruppu payasam and then decorated my Pooja shelf, listened to Vishnu Sahasranamam, and chanted a few of my favorite Shlokas without any hurry. The one-hour felt so peaceful and relaxed.
The hustle mentality of our professional work environment rubs on our personal life too. Come weekends, we end up scheduling so many things to do that the weekend just goes off in a blink. And the same pattern gets transferred to our children, with multiple back-to-back classes to keep them "engaged" all the time.
It is NOT about the number of tasks we get done in a day. It is ALL about those tasks where we completely immerse ourselves and enjoy the process.