#5 — Stop and smell the roses
Sometimes you need to be motivated to work harder. Sometimes you need to be motivated to work smarter, and sometimes you need to be motivated to even start. There is an enormous amount of content available online to get you off that couch. Go to YouTube and type in: motivational video or watch one of Gary Vee’s rants about work ethic, and you’ll at least feel the urge to get to work.
But for those of you taking on project after project, trying to improve continuously, and working relentlessly towards your goals I would love for you to read a poem I came across in the book: The 4-hour workweek.
Time flies by, and we only have such a limited amount of it. Once in a while, time is best spent when you just stop and smell the roses…
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 your 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 see his 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.
— David L. Weatherford
