Observing nature teaches us many things.  This week I look towards the stone tortoise for inspiration.

On my last trip to Poland, one of my mother’s university friends gave me a farewell gift.  She gave me a tiny red stone tortoise statue, to keep on my desk and to inspire me.  She said it should inspire me, to slow down and take life without worrying about what to do next.  Be slow, consistent but persistent.  That ancient wise man, Aesop, spoke of how the tortoise and not the hare won the race.  Things would work out in the end, she said.

Be slow, consistent but persistent.  Haste caused and still causes much pain and turmoil in my life.  Taking life slow is a tall order for someone like me.  I ran before I walked.  I climbed before I knew how to sit.  Little wonder that my ambitions and quick reactions caused more grief than slow, quiet and patient actions.  I try to be patient.  But ambition gets the better of me.  I want to write the perfect novel, now!  I want to excel in programming, now!  I want to change the world for better, and I want to change it now.  I want it all.  And I’d like it now.  A foolish notion, but tell that to a hotheaded fool such as myself.  Patience.  With patience, all good things will come in their good time when all is ready.  I just need to learn to be far more patient than I am now.

The stone tortoise I keep either on my desk or in a desk drawer.  I plan to keep it beside the glass inkshuk statue, a symbol of the human interdependence.  Just to remind me, to slow down my hectic pace.  Time resolves many issues.  Time clears up many uncertainties.  Time heals hurts that no doctor could hope to heal.  So I enarmour myself in patience and wait.  Let time pass.  Let things come to pass.   All will be clear, simple and good in good time.