Today, on a quiet and grey winter Sunday morning, I am taking a “slow day”.
I know myself to be someone instinctive and intuitive, who often moves fast from decision to action, that when I “light the blue touch paper” I move fast and people move fast and act fast in concert with me.
At the same time, lesson after lesson presents to me and to all of us through history that sometimes the truest and best course of action is to be patient.
The trick, then, is to know when to “light the blue touch paper” and when to pause or simply move patiently.
Do I have the answer for you on when to move fast and when to be patient.
No I don’t, sorry. I wish I did, sometimes!
However, if in any doubt at all as to whether moving fast is the right thing, perhaps trust your instinct in that and create space to pause, to be patient, to move slowly.
I leave you today with a poem that is thought to be the origin of the proverb “all good things come to those who wait”. To the last couplet of the poem, sometimes we must have the fortitude to recognise that, in pausing, in being patient, we may ultimately find that what we thought was meant to be was not.
Tout vient a qui sait attendre
All hoped-for things will come to you
Who have the strength to watch and wait,
Our longings spur the steeds of Fate,
This has been said by one who knew.
‘Ah, all things come to those who wait,’
(I say these words to make me glad),
But something answers soft and sad,
‘They come, but often come too late.’
~Violet Fane