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Home > Spirituality Information - A Lesson From The Middle Ages - Effectiveness Over Efficiency
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Spirituality Information - A Lesson From The Middle Ages - Effectiveness Over Efficiency by Bosco Peters
Many have lifestyles that they feel are "too busy". Strategies from the Middle Ages might prove to be surprisingly relevant to move us from being efficient and busy to being effective and with time to spare.
New Zealand is generally perceived to be a land where the life-style is "laid back" and people might emigrate here to get away from the fast-paced "rat race" that they have gotten into. Certainly areas of New Zealand will still have a relaxed lifestyle, but the recent New Zealand Listener magazine (12-18 May 2007) highlighted that in some statistical analysis New Zealand's working hours are about the same as the UK and Japan and exceeded only by Iceland, Mexico and Turkey. When it came to per capita working hours each year, New Zealand held the world's second longest after Iceland.
Interestingly, for a strongly secular magazine, Pope Benedict XVI was quoted: "We have to guard ourselves against the dangers of excessive activity, regardless of the office one holds. Too many concerns can often lead to hardness of heart and suffering of the spirit."
The Medieval Christian contemplative tradition provides spirituality information that generally placed leisurely contemplation above frenetic activity. Some (eg. Dominicans) held that the marriage of contemplation and action was the best way forward. In any case, there was no lauding of activity unaccompanied by leisure. This insight may be just as relevant today in a feverish ladder-climbing environment. One needs time and reflection to be sure one has placed the ladder against the correct wall before starting to climb. And many a person in mid-life discovers they have put all their energy into getting to the top of their particular ladder only to find the disappointment of reaching the top - that there is little there to satisfy them.
Leisurely reflection prevents confusing efficiency with effectiveness. In fact a lack of leisure blunts even our efficiency. Leisurely reflection is an important, not-urgent activity. We tend to easily focus our energy on what appears as urgent - be it important or not. It is in the area of what is non-urgent and important that the quality of our human life lies: friendship, leisurely reflection, artistic creativity and enjoyment, contemplation, meditation, etc. In fact it is expanding our energy into this important non-urgent dimension of our lives that will give us the insights into what actually is important in our lives. It will prevent us wasting time on what appears urgent but has no or little importance. It will help us gain insights how to find short-cuts, and which wall is actually worth placing one's ladder against prior to scaling it.
About the Author
Bosco Peters has an interest in providing spirituality information (http://www.liturgy.co.nz/html/spiritualityinformation.html) to help personal and community growth, including through his website liturgy, Christian worship, and spirituality.
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