There is a poem towards the back of The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss called the Slow Dance written by child psychologist David L. Weatherford, it goes like this:
The Slow Dance
Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight? Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down, Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short. The music won’t last.
Do you run through each day on the fly?
When you ask: How are you? Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done, do you lie in bed
With the next hundred chores running through your head?
You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short. The music won’t last.
Ever told your child, We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste, not seen their sorrow?
Ever lost touch, let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time to call and say, “Hi”?
You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short. The music won’t last.
When you run so fast to get somewhere, You miss half the fun of getting there
When you worry and hurry through your day, It is like an unopened gift thrown away.
Life is not a race. Do take it slower.
Hear the music Before the song is over.
Timothy talks about busyness being one of the major causes of stress and the enemy of the new rich, the four hour week workers whose lives are about living for fulfilling their dreams, dancing through life. So I have chosen some dancing quotes to look at hearing the music before the song is over:
1. I hear their reply when I ask, How are you because my heart is open from the dance of life.
2. Don’t let those hundred chores that need to be done in your head forget how much you and your friends would dance to the music and the not music when you were little: Safety Dance.
3. We have all met that person who makes us break our rules, often more than one on our lifetimes.
4. Not sure what the difference is, they say perfectionism is its own worst enemy: Let’s Dance.
5. I like doing it with another soul so all that exists are our two hearts beating as one.
6. I love this image of the dog leaping in pure ecstasy, who gives a fuck how it looks if it fully expressed: Dancing Fool.
7. Always remember what had you take up the dance in the first place, the joy and freedom.
8. Before enlightenment, take one step then another. After enlightenment and success, take one step and then another: How Far I’ll Go.
9. To me, dancing is about the expressive bits, not the steps that make it up.
10. My 90 year old mother said to me she would like me to lose some weight. I am 63 and over 100 kg again, and yes, I am a dancer: Better when I am Dancing.
11. I just took part in Dancing Freedom’s 21 day dancing challenge. You got sent 10 to 20 minutes music to dance to everyday. The only space I really have in my flat is the kitchen and the back yard.
12. I dance on dance floors where speech is not optional, we are there to dance, we are all quiet: Can’t stop this Feeling.
13. Not the slow dance, these times are special.
14. Don’t mess with a dancer, we are tough as nails and sweet and kind all in one: Shake It Off.
15. And this is what the poem is about, the Heart.
Doing the slow dance is like turning off the noise. Surprisingly the world doesn’t end and you end up being liberated in a way few people ever know. During this time follow the koan – If you don’t have attention, you don’t have time.
Namaste until next time my dear friends:
5. At One Roof, a women’s coworking space in my home city of Melbourne, there is a quote which goes like this: An entrepreneur jumps off the cliff and builds the plane on the way down. Get the drift?
I am an Interculturalist 