Timepiece

“Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late!”
 
The White Rabbit, from Lewis Carroll’s book Alice in Wonderland
 
It started quite imperceptibly, just losing a minute or two a day, but after a week or so I noticed it was losing 5 minutes a day.  Then it dawned on me that perhaps it just needed a new battery. A few days later, a new battery was installed. About a week later, a rather ominous thing occurred [well ok, in the scheme of things maybe it wasn’t that ominous], my watch with new battery started losing time again.  So I readjusted it, and the same thing happened. Then a few weeks ago, on a Shabbos (the Sabbath, the seventh and holiest day of the week when G-d ceased from creating the world and Jews cease from creative activity in commemoration of this cosmic event), I noticed something even more alarming: my watch, in the space of 24 hours, had lost half an hour!  Although it isn’t something I’d recommend doing on Shabbos, I found myself musing on whether I’d have to take it to a watch repairer or even have to buy a new watch [now that did start to appeal to me as a good idea!]. A bit later in the day, a more emuna-oriented thought popped into my mind. Rav Shalom Arush always tells us to look for the message contained within each situation in our lives, so I realised that Hashem was trying to tell me something.  It obviously had to do with time and slowing down and, almost immediately, I realized what the connection was.
 
Over the past few years I have been trying very hard to live according to Rav Shalom Arush’s teachings and, you know, it really works. Internalizing the core principles of emuna – that everything comes from Hashem, it is always good and for our benefit, and that there is a purpose to everything, as well as speaking to Hashem in personal prayer – has had several unexpected outcomes for me personally.
 
One outcome related to living in the present.
 
Whereas in the past, I would worry that I wouldn’t be able to complete my tasks, whether at work or in my personal life – even though I usually did – in the past few years I have noticed that by speaking to Hashem about even mundane things like what I needed to do the following day, I felt a burden had been lifted off me. Because actually, it wasn’t up to me to complete the task, just to make a sincere effort. And so I’ve found myself not worrying too far in advance about things that might never happen and particularly over the past few years with being a carer for elderly parents, when really anything can happen quite suddenly, to be able to feel Hashem’s love and guidance manifestly has enabled me to deal with situations in real time and not try to predict any outcomes.
 
However, more recently, I had become aware that I have been rushing through prayers and blessings because I’ve thinking about what I have to do next, worrying about preparations for Passover in January and a few other personal situations which, although potentially serious, have actually come to nothing, thank G-d.  About 6 weeks ago, I experienced something I haven’t had for at least 9 years: anxiety – the sort of anxiety you wake up with even though you can’t really work out why; the sort of anxiety where you feel like a bottle of fizzy drink being shaken and shaken. My energy level seemed lower than usual. So I tried to thank Hashem for the experience and usually the anxiety disappeared once I was up and about and busy.  Well, what is anxiety?  It’s fear.  It’s fear of the future.  How’s it going to be?  What’s going to happen?
 
So, on that revelatory Shabbos when my watch lost half an hour, I realized why: I’d stopped living in the present! Hashem was telling me: SLOW DOWN!
 
And, as if on cue, I tuned into one of Dr. Zev Ballen’s lectures the other day and, guess what, it was all about living in the present! So I’ve tried to slow myself down, by trying to concentrate on each word of my prayers, by trying to tell myself that Hashem is in control, not me, that I only have to focus on the now. I’ve had some success and failures, my mind still races but I’ve noticed less so in the last few days. I feel calmer and happier.
 
My watch has now become my aide-memoire; when I feel myself thinking too far ahead I automatically think of my watch and try to bring myself back to the present.
 
And my watch, you ask?  Oh, it’s been keeping perfect time since that Shabbos!  Shame, really, I had my eye on a beautiful new watch I’d just love to buy.  Oh well, another test to overcome – although this one could well turn out to be a much harder one!