Eric’s Sunday Sermon; How to Manage Time and High Blood Pressure

Time management is a neat idea. If we could manage time we could slow it down or speed it up. We could even manage time to a standstill and/or reverse it. “Time management” might be different. It could mean staff members who manage time. Now if I could manage time could I completely slow down my blood pressure? I like to check my blood pressure. No I do not really check blood pressure because of health. I like to run in and check it out when I am in a certain way. Get angry and go check your blood pressure. Which music does what to blood pressure and does love effect it?

To get straight to the point love is the best tool to manage time and control high blood pressure. If we get stuck in the rut of managing time to me more productive and to think of our blood pressure only along health lines, we miss the boat. How about we manage love and not control our blood pressure but just notice it.

Now make no mistake the methods we use here will make you more productive and healthier.

Get a Mantra

Really I mean it. I have a few. I try to manage time so that I deep breath intentionally several times a day. Simple actually I breathe in and think love and breathe out and think cleanse. Works for me. More about breathing later. I am an admitted “Jesus Freak”, so another mantra is “thank you lord Jesus”. Hey it works for me. Probably doing this aloud on a city bus is pushing life a little. The mantra is to set intentions. The breathing is to remind us that we get to breathe. If you do not have good intentions and are not breathing life does not suck it just ends.

I you feel like you need an extra jolt of coffee or an energy drink (natural or cancer causing) manage your time with this technique it is quite interesting. Until you do it a few times do it sitting down. For 30 seconds. Adjust for light headiness. 4X4X4X4. Gulp in air for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, breathe out for 4 seconds and hold for 4 seconds – repeat.

Now check this out. I was at rest with 118/72 71 pulse rate. Went to 134/81 68 pulse. Just like if I went for a short brisk walk. Sit down and rest and just breathe in long and gentle with your intention on love. You know you blood pressure will change. You see I consider respiratory, pulse and diastolic and systolic as things to manage. Perhaps control.

Does that manage time?

All time management is easier said than done. Sorry but I like my little life, foibles and all. I would no more get more organized than stick a stick in my eye. Just within a ten minute span my wife will reorganize our kitchen. Drives me crazy as I just organized it. Hihihihi. I organize my day and my son falls down and cuts himself badly, well there went my organizing. I told him to fall down between 4 & 6 so it would fit into my schedule. Organizing time is different really. I like to organize and manage my time not what I do or have. If I act and intend in love then time is almost irrelevant. I only use an alarm clock so that I do not wake up ten times to check the clock. I have not been late to an appointment since I can remember. My mom was adamant on that note. Being late means you disrespect someone else.

Exercise More

I never have said that I spend too much time exercising. Maybe too much time doing exercise and labor that I care not to do. Now that is bad time management. Not because I did it, but because I spent the time not loving the fact that I could.

I cannot control you or the world. But I can manage me. I can make my world stop. You may carry on at your speed. I wonder which is which with the above blood pressure and breathing; is it, the faster you go inside the slower the world or is it the slower you go inside the slower the world or the inverses? If I am going at the speed of sound and you are relaxing? Well you can see, we really do not manage time. We can manage how we do the time we have. Notice we did not say manage what we accomplish in the time we have. “Do” encompasses intentions. And loving life is the best intention as all else will follow in love.

Simply a different perspective.

Now please tear up you schedule and calendar. Put the pieces on the table. Try to go a day without putting them back in order. Mine is more like a list of stuff to get and do. Saturday and Sunday I was scheduled to write a sermon. I did. They stunk. But I did not waste time. Edison said; “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” He also said to the effect that he did not fail 2,000 times to invent a working light bulb he had simply discovered 2,000 ways not to do it. My stinky sermons still have purpose, I just do not know what it is yet.

Anarchy and Chaos

Now I like calm and easy most of the time. I use a lot of that time practicing and getting ready for the fast and hard. I am still a thrill junky at heart. In that I have so few and they are managed, I like crisis because it tells me to cast all else aside “for now”.

That brings us to the “in vogue” notion of being in the present moment or in the now. Kind of like not to manage the past and the future but just the now. That sounds like sound logic. But then go back to your pile on the table. I personally plan before going to the grocery store. But then I adjust based on the freshest produce and the best aged other things. Squeezing vegetables and reading labels is never a waste of time.

My wife buys things because they are on sale for a great price. So she goes to the store without a list. Just the notion to plan for the week. So her time is in the moment but planning for the future. I personally think it is a good expenditure of time to dream about what wonders will come my way at the end of the hiking trail. I have never met a person who starts to meditate and becomes less productive, yet meditating “takes” time. (Away from what?) Time passes until we do.

Stuck in the rain and fixing a flat tire in the mud and late for a meeting. Think this way. We are to love our enemies. So we must love the enemies and plunderers of our time. Like accidents and idiots. So if you take that time in the rain and love it, it is not a waste of time. Manage your time by loving life. Love life and it does not matter what you are “doing”.

In closing – finally a sermon that is not a waste of time.