Mindfulness

Recently due to the setting up of several WhatsApp groups at work, I have found myself constantly glued to my handphone. I used to marvel at how my boss (who is now on maternity leave) could respond to any WhatsApp msg within half an hour, and now I am one of them! But I must say this sort of responsiveness comes at a cost. I am a lot less mindful of what i am doing at any one time, of my surroundings, and even when I'm supposed to be relaxing, I find myself checking my Hp several times an hour, which smacks of a kind of distractedness which surely cannnot be good.

Due to the close shave with death my second Son experienced (for more on that, see my previous blog post), due to my fatigue from responding to WhatsApp msgs and fighting a fire all morning, I have been rethinking if I want to live this way. This was further confirmed from chatting with another coworker who talked about how she went from being always very conscious and deliberate and aware of what she was doing, where she had placed her things, to how one day she had carefully laid out a piece of Bak Kwa for a Bak Kwa sandwich, then absent-mindedly went to the kitchen and spread jam on her bread! When she came back out to the living room she was scratching her head as she never would have made such a mistake! We both realised and concluded that this sort of distractedness surely cannot be good for us long-term. I'm therefore a lot more aware of what I am doing now. I vow not to check my Hp so much and to not respond so fast, so immediately off i can help it.

Which brings me to another point - that of fear of man or or God. We all know we ought to fear God rather than man - stories of Daniel, Paul's lettters etc etc. But I am realising that practicing it in real life is much harder than I thought! For instance - why do i respond so quickly to my bosses? Why do I feel so edgy and full of unreat when they are angry or unhappy with something not going well? I feel quite ashamed - these are all redolent of fear of man. And I also realised I don't have the physical consistution to survive in a constantly high stress environment. I start feeling like going to the toilet,I get mysterious aches in my chest and armpits, I am just not doing well. So my conclusion is I need to get off this treadmill of seeking man's approval all the time, and just do what's right and do the best jin I can each day, as a love offering to my heavenly father And if that doesn't get appreciated, so be it. I should look only to my Heavenly Father for approval every day, every moment. Pray continuously, rejoice in the Lord, be joyful always, give thanks continually.