I love watching wicket keepers and goalies. In the very little cricket that I played, I was a wicket keeper and I just enjoyed the anticipation of wondering where the ball would pitch and what the batsman would do, whether to move to the left or the right, to pouch a catch or to effect a stumping. These things charged me up. I still remember, as a little boy, listening to commentators talk about Farokh Engineer, or Budhi Kunderan, or Allan Knott, wicket keepers of yesteryears, and listening to them say, "He's dived to the left and the ball has landed directly in his gloves. It's a wonderful catch!" I could feel the excitement of trying to relive what had happened as the wicket keeper moved to the left or the right and took the catch.
I think goalies have it so much more difficult. Most cricket balls will bounce and then come – it's easier to then gauge which way the ball is going to move. But goalies don't have that. They have to remain still and figure out, because the ball is coming to them without any bounce. I do think they have it a little harder than wicket keepers in trying to figure it out.
But, it's interesting, as I thought about wicket keepers and goalies that, before they move, before they pounce on a ball, there's that sense of stillness that envelops them. They are just absolutely still trying to gauge which side they need to go.
Take jokes as well. You come to the punch line and it's always the stillness before the punch line is delivered, that makes the punch line all that more interesting.
Stillness is something that is so very integral to productivity, to something good happening. Yet, we find ourselves very rarely being still. The penchant for activity overwhelms us. Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats call this 'an aversion to idleness' that all of us have. They say that within ourselves, it is not possible for us to stay idle and not do something. There's a need or a bias toward action that somehow prevents us from doing, what seems to be, the right thing.
I love music, and I've done a couple of pieces out of Handel's Messiah. One is the Hallelujah Chorus that Handel wrote. At the end of the chorus, there are 4 Hallelujahs that come one after the other almost as a crescendo. Then suddenly, there's a pause, and then the 5th Hallelujah comes. So dramatic! But if you take away that pause, it would just be another Hallelujah. There would be 5 Hallelujahs. But the effect of that pause is so huge that there's a sense of 'Wow' at the end when the 5th Hallelujah is sung. That's the importance of pause.
And yet, in our life, we rarely give any significance to being still, pressing 'Pause' in the middle of the day and taking stock. There's this drive within us to do something and not be inactive, in spite of knowing all of this, knowing how important stillness is and how important a pause is. Unfortunately we fill our lives with activity. Andrew Simon says, "Activity, unfortunately, does not always equate to accomplishment."
In a study that was done at Wipro's Tech Support Call Center in Bangalore, the employees were asked to go through training. Some of the groups of employees going through the training were asked to spend the last 15 minutes of each day writing about and reflecting on the lessons they had learnt that day. But other employees just kept working at the end of the day for those 15 minutes and did not receive the reflection time. What was the result? Over the course of 1 month, the reflection group increased its performance on the final training test by an average of 22.8% more than the control group of trainees who had been working 15 minutes longer per day.
Interesting! We ought to take time out from busyness and reflect, just to think through what was said, what was learnt, what was processed, what was done. This would have a much better effect on our performance.
Why does reflection have such beneficial effects? It's because:
1. It makes us more aware of where we are.
2. It gives us information about our progress.
3. It lends us the confidence we need to accomplish tasks and goals.
Important lessons for us to slow down and reflect. As Confucius said, "Learning without reflection is a waste; reflection without learning is dangerous." It's so important for us to be able to spend downtime, to be able to take time off and say, "I need to be able to get away for a couple of minutes, or 15 minutes, or even an hour; spend time doing nothing, letting my brain replenish, work through and process all that has happened in the time that I have been working."
Tim Kreider, writing in the New York Times says, "Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets."
This made me ask the question this morning: Do I provide enough downtime myself? Do I have moments when I can reflect? Do I get away from the busyness of a day for sometime to allow my mind to process? Are my evenings filled with activities connected to work or can I tune off and just do something that is completely different? Can I just sit, and think, or just enjoy beauty and allow the brain to process and replenish?
These are important moments for our day, not only as we look at ourselves. Research too, is beginning to bear this out. It's important for us to have downtime. Continuous productivity can have a negative effect on the work that we do.
"Be still and know that I am God" is the way our Scriptures put it. Be still, and in this stillness, we come to know that there is somebody else far greater who is at work, who won't drop the ball on the things that we are doing. We can trust Him. In that stillness, being aware of the trust we have in an Almighty God, we can come back refreshed, renewed and invigorated to carry on the work that we are called to do.
Downtimes. I wonder whether you have them. If you don't, I wonder whether today is the day to think seriously about it, and to do something about it. My prayer is that God would help each one of us to see how we can make that happen amidst the busyness of our lives.
May I pray with you. Almighty God, in the midst of all the busyness, You invite us to take time out and be still and know that You are God. Help us, Lord God, to put those moments into our days. And as we do it, help us to find out how wonderful it is to be able, in those times of reflection, to understand that an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God is really in charge of our lives and draw strength and courage from it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
• Francesca Gino & Bradley Staats, "The Remedy for Unproductive Busyness." https://hbr.org/2015/04/the-remedy-for-unproductive-busyness
• "Handel's Hallelujah Chorus," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUZEtVbJT5c
• Andrew Simon, "Unproductive Busyness." http://www.yellowedge.com.au/cms/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Issue-36-Unproductive-Busyness.pdf
• Tim Kreider, "The 'Busy' Trap" http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/?_r=0
• Confucius quote: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/686473-learning-without-reflection-is-a-waste-reflection-without-learning-is
• Bible quote: Psalm 46:10
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