Zen at Work

I put my zen training to work today. Specifically, I used the technique I learned from Thich Nhat Hanh's book.  When I was walking and found my brain running at a hundred miles an hour, I stopped, I looked around me, I breathed, and then I focused on simply walking and breathing.  It worked very well and pulled me down a couple of notches a couple of times.

I am two days into the UAT on my portion of the project (this would be the UAT that I pulled out of my butt on four days notice) and things are moving rapidly forward, with good feedback from the users and most importantly, no major findings yet.  There have been a couple of minor configuration issues that we'll take a look into as we go along, but other that the very long days, things have been going well.

I am settled in for an hour or so of relaxation and then I am going to curl up and spend a little time reading.  One advantage of the high work load is it keeps my mind off the tangles of my personal life. I will of course work my way through them too, but for now, they are pushed aside. That ability to focus on the immediate and the external has stood me well over the years.

So, let me leave you with a snippet of the song running through my brain tonight...

It's one I've mentioned before, from John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band (on Eddie and the Cruisers):

Tender Years

When the moon hung soft and low
Catching stardust in the light
You held me closer and closer
There was magic in the night.

A sweet love song, a melody
That I still can recall
Two young hearts filled with dreams
To walk away with it all.

Whoa, whoa tender years
Won't you wash away my tears
How I wish you were near
Please don't go, tender years.

A summer love, a beach romance
Sought her kisses in the sand
Two young hearts filled with fire
Lost in never-neverland.

 Whoa, whoa tender years
Won't you wash away my tears
How I wish you were near
Please don't go, tender years.

Whoa, whoa tender years
Won't you wash away my tears
How I wish you were near
Please don't go, tender years.

Whoa, whoa tender years
Won't you wash away my tears
How I wish you were near
Please don't go, tender years.