[ Generic problem ]

A to B. And then B to C. And then C to D. And then E to F. Oh right, wait. We do that right. Even before we have reached the point E, we’re already thinking about jumping from there to F. We’re only bothered about how to go from one point to another. How to reach. How to arrive, achieve, accomplish. How to defeat. How to finish with finesse. How to just anaesthetize ourselves through the journey, so that god forbid if we wake up anytime in between. Wake up and notice that we are awake. Notice the roads sliding under our feet. The clouds gliding over our heads. The winds chattering with the air we breathe out. And god forbid if our eyes finally open out wide and soak in the beauty that surrounds us. The beauty that percolates through all that’s amidst us. No matter where we were. No matter who we are with. We’re surrounded by beauty all the time – inside and out. But god forbid if we ever stop to notice that.

And so we move, move from points A to B. And then B to ... [ Question the generic problem ] but what if we just choose to stop.  What if we choose to just be. [ Answer the generic problem ] The world would be alright. In fact, if I could presumptuously presume the world be a better place for that, for us.

[ Specific personal problem ]

Now I too have been guilty of just skimming through life many a times. Just wading through the happenings to reach the shore. For instance, when I go to fast food restaurants which serve breakfast, like A2B (Adyar Anand Bhavan) my sole aim would be to gobble up the breakfast at the fastest rate I could muster, and then irrigate my throat with some coffee at the fastest clip that clicked, and be off.

[ Question the specific problem ] But what if I stopped myself on some unremarkable day? What if I did things differently? What if I did the simple act of having my breakfast differently? [ Answer the specific problem] What if when I went to A2B, first of all, before looking for a place to sit, I chose to breathe? And instead of already thinking about the next point B I’d to already be in, I just chose to be at A2B?

I could look around and soak in the atmosphere, the pond of people that surround me from this vast ocean of humanity. I could hear that kid screaming and running away from his mom, who’s trying to feed him idli with spicy red chutney. When the mini tiffin I ordered arrives at my table, I could accept it gracefully from the waiter, looking him in his eyes, rendering gratitude for his service through a smile. I could take a moment to acknowledge the culinary carnival that awaited me. Hot pongal glistening with ghee. Alluringly sweet kesari bath. Well if you’ve a sweet tooth like me, you would always go for the kesari bath first. Warm masala dosa, smaller in size, but still perfectly pleasing the palate. And the crispy inviting vada.

And how could you ever end a south Indian breakfast without a south Indian coffee. Now I’m not against cappuccino, don’t get me wrong. But I believe it misses more than it gives. And so I gladly order a cup of south Indian coffee, strictly after the food. Hot coffee arrives in a stainless steel cup. I smell it before drinking. The fulfilling fragrance of fresh coffee. I slurp the first sip. Delightfully strong. And I take my time to drain it down.

And suddenly, just like that, my unremarkable day has done a somersault.

[ Pause. Conclusion. ]

As the great Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu had said, “Nature never hurries, and yet it accomplishes everything”.

My dear toastmasters, life has become a table topic session for us. After every two minutes we need a new topic to engage and entertain us. We want to hop from a goal to another like a frog in a forest fire. But this fire we’ve lit is only in our mind. We can choose to stop it anytime we want, and blow it out like a birthday candle. We can choose to slow down, stop and breathe. Instead of wading through life, we can allow life to flow through us, invading us completely, submerging us, engulfing us and occupying our every pore.

And when instead of hopping from A to B, we can just be, we’ll know that this is it, this moment. Our primary math taught us that between any two points there are an infinite number of points. When we can know that these series of points, these series of moments, that we are sleeping through, are all we have. When we know that and we’re in each of those moments, if I may presumptuously say, we would have probably arrived, to where we had to be.