Take Your Time: How to Find Patience, Peace and Meaning

Summary of Take Your Time

1. 1

   When Speed Becomes the Enemy

   

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   Ever notice how the faster we move, the less we actually experience? We gulp down coffee while checking emails, rush through conversations while mentally planning our next task, and arrive home exhausted without remembering the journey. This isn't living-it's merely existing at high velocity. Here's the strange truth: slowing down doesn't mean accomplishing less. It means being fully present for what we're doing, which paradoxically makes us more effective. Think of Gandhi, who led 400 million people in revolution against the British Empire while remaining perpetually calm. Or consider the emergency room doctor who saves lives not by panicking but by maintaining steady focus. Speed creates the illusion of productivity while actually fragmenting our attention and depleting our energy. When we race through life, we're like drivers speeding past every exit, wondering why we never arrive anywhere meaningful. The real question isn't how much we can cram into twenty-four hours, but whether we're truly alive during those hours at all.

2. 2

   The Mind That Won't Stop Running

   Start Listening

   Our thoughts behave like unruly children, constantly dragging us from the present moment. While washing dishes, your mind travels from California to Minnesota in seconds. During conversations, you're mentally composing grocery lists. This isn't occasional distraction-it's our default state. The Buddha compared this to being anesthetized. We stay perpetually busy to avoid uncomfortable questions: What do I really want? What is life actually for? Like the character in H.G. Wells' story who repeatedly passes a mysterious door because he's always checking his watch, we're too rushed to explore what truly matters. But attention can be trained like a muscle. When you keep attention present, you restore vital energy trapped in past resentments and future anxieties. You become fully alive, inhabiting each moment rather than sleepwalking through your days. This skill determines the quality of your entire life.

3. 3

   Eight Doorways to Presence

   Start Listening

   Transforming a hurried life requires strategic choices. Wake earlier to establish calm rhythm when your mind naturally settles. Focus deeply on one book rather than skimming many. Turn off the television - creative minds need sustained attention, not fragmented awareness. Take a red pencil to your obligations. List everything, then ruthlessly eliminate what's not truly necessary. Many "essential" activities are merely habits nobody will miss. Prioritize relationships through leisurely meals. Build in reflection time - students who pause to plan often outperform brighter peers who start immediately. Cultivate patience, the heart of love and perhaps life's most valuable skill. Emergency medical technicians know that maintaining a cool, concentrated mind is essential during crises - a speeded-up mind only interferes. Finally, slow your mind through meditation. As Meher Baba taught, "A mind that is fast is sick. A mind that is slow is sound. A mind that is still is divine."

4. Chapter 4

   The Revolutionary Act of Paying Attention

   Complete attention is more precious than any gift. Children instantly sense when your mind wanders. Your undivided focus tells them they matter-that nothing is more important than their experience right now. At gatherings, notice how eyes wander during conversations. When you focus completely-eyes, ears, mind, and heart-on someone speaking, you create profound connection. Even hostile people can be disarmed through judgment-free listening with complete attention. Life resembles a tennis match where equally skilled opponents bring out each other's best. With unbroken concentration, difficulties become tests developing patience and conviction. The Buddha warned against "wobbling"-dividing attention between tasks. Engaging with partial attention prevents true impact, creating emptiness that drives us to seek more experiences. The solution isn't more activity but slowing down to live fully in the present. One-pointed attention intensifies beauty-music becomes more moving, colors more vivid, revealing what Thomas Traherne called "the heart of life" that casual observation misses entirely.

   Chapter 5

   Beyond Rigid Preferences and Into Freedom

   We cling to pleasures as if grasping will make them last, but this only creates frustration. William Blake understood: "He who binds to himself a Joy, Doth the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the Joy as it flies Lives in Eternity's sunrise." True enjoyment comes from appreciating experiences as they arrive and depart, without desperate attachment. When you free yourself from rigid preferences, remarkable flexibility emerges. You can enjoy activities through others' enthusiasm even when they don't naturally appeal to you. Choosing your partner's Shakespeare play over your preferred movie deepens connection and might reveal unexpected delight. Food provides excellent training ground. Our taste buds reveal our inner state-calm minds request nourishing foods, agitated minds demand old favorites. Modern culture encourages increasingly specific preferences, making you a slave to pickiness. The Buddha offered practical guidance: experiences that calm the mind and foster compassion are beneficial; those that agitate should be avoided. Unchecked preferences become increasingly inflexible-from meticulously rearranging restaurant place settings to raging when someone takes "your" parking space. Freedom lies not in satisfying every preference but in holding them loosely.

   Chapter 6

   The Sacred Ground of Human Connection

   Technology promises convenience but delivers isolation. Automated systems sacrifice human contact for speed, yet relationships can flourish if we nurture them deliberately in our hurried world. We've made technological advances while regressing in what truly matters-compassion, kindness, forgiveness. Society promotes mechanization for its own sake, making us machine-like. Cultivate personal relationships everywhere-with bank tellers, mail carriers, everyone you encounter. These aren't just transactions but opportunities for trust to grow. Television has devastated companionship-we claim no time for neighbors yet watch five hours daily. Keep it reasonable, perhaps watching good programs with friends to maintain human connection. Why expect professional success to require effort but take relationship success for granted? When conflicts arise, don't withdraw-move closer and prioritize the other's welfare. Most disagreements stem from self-will and lack of respect. Try listening with complete attention during conflicts-often anger subsides when met with calm respect. Bringing joy to someone you care about provides unmatched security. As John Donne said, "No man is an island"-selfless relationships lead to happiness while self-centeredness breeds loneliness. Connection is our nature, but it's easily forgotten when rushed.

   Chapter 7

   The Still Point Where Everything Changes

   Deep within, beneath mental chatter, lies profound stillness-your refuge during life's difficulties. As Buddha taught, "Not your parents, not your partner, not your best friends can bring you such peace as a well-trained mind." Through meditation, you discover the gap between thoughts-a state of "no mind" revealing you're not your thoughts but their observer. This detachment lets you watch your mind like a watchmaker studying a timepiece, appreciating beautiful thoughts while letting destructive patterns pass. When challenges arise, this stillness protects you. Instead of magnifying problems, focus on work, repeat your mantram, and maintain morning meditation's peace. The mantram acts like a traffic cop between angry thoughts, creating space for wisdom. Every heart needs to love-not just one person but all of life. This universal love flows naturally from a still mind, multiplying joy a millionfold. Your racing mind isn't ambition-it's disconnection from your deepest self. The still center within has always been there, like a brook whose gentle music reveals itself when noise subsides. When you quiet mental cacophony through patient practice, you discover the peace you've been seeking was never outside you at all.

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