The Time!

 The Most Expensive Gift we  have is Time.

The festive season is here and lots of interesting things start happening around us.

The lights get brighter.The shopping bags get bigger.The online sales become impossible to ignore.

And suddenly, apparently, everyone needs a new outfit, new cushions, new crockery, new skincare, new gadgets.....and perhaps a new personality to go with all of it.

Any guess on personality types?

Type A.....Type B .....or Type les???

We shop to celebrate.Then we work harder to pay for what we bought.

Then we get exhausted.Then we book a retreat to recover from the exhaustion.

Relaxation  and  spirituality,  is it turning into  another form of consumerism ? The expensive retreats to online darshan??

I love beautiful things. I enjoy shopping. I enjoy a good retreat. I enjoy dressing up and celebrating.

But somewhere along the way, perhaps we need to ask ourselves:

What if the most valuable thing we could give someone doesn't come in a shopping bag at all?

It is our time.

The luxury of an unhurried conversation.Think about the last time someone sat with you, without checking their phone every three minutes.They simply sat with you.And you talked  about life, children, aging parents,trends in education.

Can we guess why teenagers seem to have a completely different operating system? Why  a woman who is only 35 and already feels completely burnt out.

Do we need to reflect on the "idea "of independent woman?

The life that you want to create??

Do.you have discipline,skills , planning and financial management for that?

It takes knowing what you actually want,and , most importantly, it takes the courage to question .

Perhaps success can also mean creating enough freedom to breathe between the work.

We have become very good at buying back what we gave away.

We often give away our time first.

Then meetings,Emails,Deadlines,Traffic.

Scrolling,Unnecessary obligations.

People-pleasing etc etc

And now we are exhausted.What next?Let's buy the feeling.

A spa appointment,A wellness retreat.

A weekend getaway,A meditation app.

A holiday.

Refreshed!

भगवद्गीता 2.47

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।

मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥

“You have a right to your actions, but not to the fruits of your actions.”

The deeper idea here isn't that we shouldn't care about results. It is about where we place our attention.

We can spend so much of our lives chasing outcomes.....more money, more success, more recognition, more productivity......that we forget to actually live the moments that are happening while we are chasing them.

Perhaps the question isn't only, “What am I achieving with my time?”

It is also:

“What am I doing with the time I have been given?”

Because a life can be very productive and still be strangely empty.

And sometimes, the most meaningful use of an hour is not another achievement. It is sitting beside someone you love, listening without looking at the clock.

The real luxury is having tea with your mother and listening to her grudges against you.  My mother has a long list for me always ready to be read out. 🤣

Talking to your plants, checking on people, cooking something slowly

Doing Nothing!!!

Just the presence

Life needs joy.

But perhaps we can add something else to the shopping list this year.

Time.

Give your children your attention,your parents your presence, your friends a long, lazy cup of tea,yourself an evening without productivity.

Who will set the trend?

You and I

So this festive season, by all means, buy the diya.Buy the kurta.Buy the mithai.But perhaps, before you add another item to your cart, ask yourself:

"What if I gifted someone my time instead?"

🌼🌼