Speed up Life!

Speed matches the rhythm of life, that is by nature too short and running out so fast. We must be fast to cope with such life.

Since happiness is what gives meaning to life making it worth-living, the momentum that makes it worth-running, we should seek maximum happiness for us to keep going, and to keep going fast, enjoying and benefiting from every second life offers.

We can speed up life in many ways. To properly understand, cope with, and enjoy your life, think of it as a vehicle needing a speedometer, a fuel, and a light body. In other words, be always aware of time, having maximum momentum to live and minimum resistance on the road, to cope with life's challenges and turns.

I. Awareness of Time

Your awareness of time will decide how fast you want to do things: The moments of life have been running out ever since you were born, like they are queuing up for death. So stop each one and share something before it's gone forever. Appreciation of time is a virtue better taught at an early age than a late one. Time is a gift we won't have forever, that we sometimes forget its value because of wrong choices and time-consuming habits, making life unnoticeably slip through our fingers. We should remember this fact everyday, because we forget it everyday too: we should sharpen our "sense of time" whenever it gets dull.

To acquire such virtue, we need to develop some time-saving behaviors and personal characters first. One can start by having provocative thoughts that speed up thinking, prodding us into action and speeding the rhythm of life in general.

Thoughts

Finish maximum jobs at maximum speed, taking minimum time, and using all your skills to make them perfect.
Remember that life is too short and beautiful, that you want to enjoy every second of it before it's gone.
Do things that can't wait first: an opportunity you must take, or anything you've been unnecessarily delaying, that you must do now or never.
Treat today as if it's your last day, which is always a possibility.
Life is full of choices, some are better than others. Every moment has a best decision that we should know and make. Thus, always ask yourself: What's the best thing to do now?

Habits

Look at the clock, calendar, sky ... from time to time.
Have a schedule or reminder that is comprehensive and organized.
Regularly check items in your schedule to see which is done.
Write down your thoughts, because the mind is too limited to keep every idea crossing it. Thinking with a pencil and paper, computer, or any helping device speeds up thinking, as if one's IQ is higher than it actually is. (Such devices are not allowed in some exams intended to measure mental skills. So use them freely to increase your IQ. "Living smart" is what matters, not being smart.)

Change

Changing view while you drive tells you how fast you drive, how much is left, and how much is past. Doing things differently is the best way to discover shortcuts on the road of life. Close-mindedness can keep one blind to all the different probabilities they haven't exhausted yet. A genius looks at problems in many different ways. Open up your eyes and mind, and brainstorm your life to see all it has got.

Live a constant rebirth. Be willing to change your ideas, feelings, environment, people; your habits, hobbies, tastes; your looks, movements, posture, intonation ... and your personality and entire self if necessary. Change helps animals cope faster with the new environments they are put in.

Competition

Comparing "yourself in the past" to yourself at present can tell you how much you achieved. Comparing yourself to others can also help, but less, because everyone is different and many people who follow their animal social instinct rush to making illegitimate comparisons spoiling their pleasure, before understanding themselves enough first.

Challenge yourself more than anyone else, by mastering your old skills and acquiring new ones. Remember your great achievements and make even greater ones. Outperform you!
Surprise yourself! This is really challenging but very exciting, when you see something you did, but didn't expect it to turn out so good.

II. Momentum

1. Physical

This is the spark that starts your engine. It's useful sometimes to get our body into a tense, fast, constantly mobile mode, with fully alert senses, to give a preliminary push by the body to the mind. Once the mind is set on a high speed, we should get the body back into its normal slow mode, to avoid unnecessary physical tension or distraction. Whenever the mind is dull, apathetic or not fast enough, we can give it a prod, by using this great "primary momentum" the body can offer (however reluctant we feel in the beginning to move, or "mind-sufficient" and intellectually superior to ask our senses for help). It's a type of "good" false alarm, deceiving our animal nature to produce such quick reaction to an imminent danger, although there isn't any, just to benefit from the temporary boost we get.

2. Mental

The faster we move the more accidents we may have, as we lose control over our body and life. For this, we'd better move inside more by "thinking fast," which is more useful than "moving fast," that should only come, eventually, to crown one's mindful thoughts.

Conviction is how much we believe in our actions. It's a shame to keep doing things we don't believe in, whatever the motive is for such a shameful contradiction. We save ourselves and others much trouble and time when our choices are based on sound reasoning and deep conviction, by avoiding things, people, habits, emotions, obsessions, addictions ... that harm our ability to apply logical thinking. Our mind should be free from any temporary, physical, emotional or social burden, for it to create a sound judgment. One should devote time thinking before making any life-changing decision related to work, study, health, travel, marriage, friends, contacts ... to enjoy life in the right place with the right people, doing the right things. Any wrong decisions can be costly and irrevocable.

To have conviction, learn, in theory and practice. Learning saves time you may waste and mistakes you may commit. Learn from the failure and success of others: start from where others ended. Stick to wise, intelligent, useful, trustful people, to speed up your own life.

3. Emotional

a. Pleasure

Motivation is the momentum we need to stay interested in whatever we do, and in doing it fast. We do things only to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Anything else we should stop (or try to) immediately: things we do merely out of habit, or to please other people only. You can't enjoy anything or anyone, if you don't enjoy being who you are first; otherwise you keep running away from yourself all your life, and life becomes a lifelong scary experience. Love yourself then, and remember you always deserve to be happy. Without loving one's self and loving to please it all else is a waste of time. One's main duty in life is to enjoy themselves; any other duty is based upon this one. Nobody can enjoy for you.

b. Security

Some things will never happen unless you get rid of your over-fears, shyness, doubts, diffidence, guilt ... first. Spend quality time with yourself to recognize and remove such negative emotions slowing down your life rhythm.

III. Minimum Friction

Organization

Think of all the things you want to do before you die, or you want to do this year/week/day: your check-out list.
Define your goals! Know your target and aim at it, without unnecessarily waiting!
List your priorities. Constantly prioritize, asking "Of all the things I can do, what is the best thing to do?"

Practicality

Find practical solutions to your immediate insecurities, that keep you from enjoying life properly.
Do everything with a practical sense of reality that you must hone up everyday (else it gets dull):
- Understand and accept life, and all its facts—death, aging, inequality, illnesses, accidents, contradictions, etc.
- Accept people as they are: their shortcomings, self-interests, moodiness, etc.
- Resist any pointless mindless sentimentality, by the power of logic. However, you can still live in dream Utopia, occasionally, for diversion as well as motivation, doing in dreams all you cannot do in reality. Never lose hope, because without hope you can't think, see or do anything. Life has no need for panicking or "panickers."

Simplicity

Focus & simplicity go together: focusing on few is easier than on many. The more weight you carry along the journey of life, the slower your pace gets. Such weights/burdens are:

Possessions you may keep and protect but don't use.
Money-grubbing. You spend way more time making money than spending it.
Relationships. Unwanted or manipulative people slowing down your life, that must be "amputated": one-sided friendships, affairs, contacts; clingy family ties; or any form of obsessive social attachment.
Obsessions with useless things that cause more harm than good: any type of addiction, to places, buildings, objects (collecting or keeping things), useless books or knowledge, shallow arts, childish hobbies, pointless sports, aimless travel, and, of course, drugs, food, cigarettes, alcohol, etc.
Over-thinking, over-acting, over-learning, over-reading, over-worrying ... that is, over-sizing life that you forget to enjoy. Life can be lost in the mazes you create for yourself. Keep it simple, because it is simple. (It's a moment of wakefulness interrupting long eternal sleep.)

Adjustment

Habits save time making life easier, where we merely give known orders to our body to execute rather than stop and think before every action we take. So develop good habits and quit bad/useless ones "as early as possible," since habitual behaviors form the most part of life (more than sudden/infrequent ones) and a wrong habit can unnoticeably consume life. Animals that cope with environment survive longer and don't go extinct. It's better to cope with a situation you can't change than use up your energy fighting it.

* * *

Life is running so fast that we should keep pace with it by running fast too. It is naturally short; we should live it to the full to make up for and stretch its short span. Being swift and tense (fast and focused) is superior to all other modes of living, as it goes in harmony with the nature of such a short life. It's mind speed and focus that matter most, because body speed or any other physical skill is too limited, not enough to help one survive in so short a life.

Suppose you are to die tomorrow: it will be difficult to sit and watch your end calmly, staying still, physically and mentally, while taking your time doing nothing, thinking of nothing, until that dreaded tomorrow arrives! That would be the fool's reaction to death, because there is no time to take in the first place (and, after all, no one is equally certain whether tomorrow is the last day or not, since Death can equally "change his mind"). Thus we should capture the moment, however short it is. Even Nature teaches us so. (A short-lived sparrow, flower, meal, orgasm, youth ... and life!) We'd better move then, at least in our heads, enjoying every second before it's gone, forever, reviving all the old things we've loved, and trying all the new things we're still curious to see, learn, and do.

Even during sleep, the brother of death, that requires minimal activity, the mind is quite active, freely traveling between unrestrained fantasies, putting pieces of thoughts together, fragmenting others, mixing all life places/faces/colors ... however surreal the outcome is. Sleep is not stillness, although we prefer to fall asleep fast, without tossing and turning. We want to travel to dreamland, that sleep can take us to, however motionless we are. It's the imagination part of our brain that works fastest. Even our deepest sleep is the one with a rapid eye movement (REM). Everything in life is begging us to move, and dance in harmony with the rest of humans and animals, ebbs and tides, planets, stars, galaxies ... celebrating the life we live only once.

Like sleep, any other "still, slow or relaxed" mode of living may "seem" boring initially, discordant with life rhythm, bearing a resemblance to death and the greater eternal stillness we will pass into eventually; yet, such modes are types of movement too, slow but equally lively, a variation on the theme of constant human mobility, just like other outer forms of speeds are, except we direct the former inwards, toward different parts of our body and mind. (As the ancients described it, "focusing our energy elsewhere.")

Mind-Body Hedonism | Focus | Accept Death, Enjoy Life