Take Your Time

I was editing one of the videos for our first Zentangle Apprentice Project Pack. Every now and then Molly would say, “Take your time,” as she guided us through various tangles.

I love a good metaphor and I also love word play. (I also enjoy reading contracts and Terms of Use, but that’s another story!)

Let’s look closer at “Take your time.”

According to Cambridge Dictionary, that phrase is “said to mean that you can spend as much time as you need in doing something, or that you should [or, in my opinion, may] slow down.”

But look closer at what the phrase states when taken literally:

• Take YOUR time - suggesting that there is “time” that is “yours” already.
  
  
• TAKE your time - suggesting that you must proactively do something in order to “take” your “time”

Notice also that Cambridge Dictionary mentions that you “spend” your time. That reminds me of another common English phrase, “Pay attention.”

Where am I going with this?

Well, what happens when you spend or pay money for something? The answer is, you receive whatever it is that you spent your money on or that you paid for.

My suggestion is that time is a wealth more valuable than items measured in monetary terms. I also suggest that your attention influences your experience more than you might expect.

How?

Because whatever you “spend” the treasure of your time on, you’ve bought it — meaning you get more of that in your experience. Likewise, whatever you “pay attention” to, looms larger in your experience.

So, as Molly says in these videos, “Take your time!” — TAKE your time! — Take YOUR time!

Then choose to SPEND that time treasure on what you want in your life.

And as Bijou says, “Focus”. Focus, or pay, the treasure of your attention on what you want to grow; on what you want more of.

We encourage you, in a Zentangle way and with gratitude, to focus, to pay deliberate attention to the next stroke, the next step, in whatever you choose to nourish and support.

Trust that you will know what to do with the next stroke when you get to it.

And remember the intent of the Zentangle “No Mistakes” philosophy . . .

. . . that even if something goes in a different direction than you expected or wanted, that experience can inspire a response that only you have the ability to create and bring into this wide wonderful world in a beautiful way.

So . . .

Take your time. 

Rick

P.S. Zentangle Apprentice Project Pack No. A1