Hurry up, Diana! From the time I was little that was all I did. I hurried to school, I hurried to work, I even hurried to bed! Fellow Toastmasters…I was always in a hurry because I had a plan. By 35, I would have a husband, an international career, and be…speech champion. But I’ll be 40 next month and none of those things happened. I felt discouraged so I signed up for a 10-day meditation retreat to relax and think about my next plan.
　

Everyone warned me, “Diana, you want to meditate for 10 whole days? “Do you know about the physical pain? Pain? I’ll be sitting all day!  “Diana, do you know that thinking all day is like a mental torture?” Torture? Half the time I’ll be asleep! Diana, do you know that you can’t talk?” A Toastmaster not talking for 10 days! Umm…now that will be hard!
　

Day 1- I could hear the master saying, “Feel your nose, feel your breath, feel the air going in and out.” “In and out.” I can’t feel my nose. I can’t feel my breath. The only thing I can feel is …my stomach growling. Is it lunchtime yet?
　

That day we meditated for 7 hours, but it felt like 7 days. My knees were stiff and the meditation pillow was like a rock under my butt. And I couldn’t calm my mind. I kept daydreaming about everything I couldn’t have the next ten days – mainly meat and men. Every second I thought of eating delicious sushi and kissing Superman. 


Day 4 – In and out {Medium speed}. My mind was spinning. I went from good thoughts to bad thoughts. And the bad thoughts were so bad they were thoughts that I had pushed to the furthest parts of my mind… like the day in the hospital I held my grandfather’s hand and looked at his face when he took his last breath.
　

Day 7 – In and out. Now I am meditating 9-10 day hours a day. Thinking, breathing, breathing, thinking. Thinking about why I was so mean to my mother when I was a kid. Thinking about why all my relationships ended. I had so many plans! How did my life turn out like this? All this mental torture…I had enough! I was ready to walk out right in the middle of the meditation and go home.
　

But when I opened my eyes, do you want to know what I saw? {Pause} I saw my fellow meditators crying, silently. Their minds were going through torture, too but they chose to stay and stick it out. At that moment I realized that that was my problem. I was always in a hurry because I wanted to escape. I didn’t want to think. It was easier to be in a hurry than to stop and think about all of my problems. But when I was meditating, I couldn’t escape. I had to face them. So instead of leaving at that moment, I closed my eyes again, and the second my eyelids touched, tears streamed down my face. Finally, I released all my pain, and with that release came an awakening.
　

{Sit in chair, Fix hair} In and out – Day 10. I no longer felt the pains in my knees or the rock under my butt. I no longer daydreamed of kissing Superman, and I had no desire to talk.
　

I left the meditation retreat driving slowly, no longer in a hurry. I could see the leaves swaying with vibrant colors of yellow, orange and red and hearing the soft call of the autumn wind.
　

Fellow Toastmasters, I learned that life never turns out like you planned - and it really sucks! But we have to stop, think and face our problems. Because they won’t go away, regardless of how much we do to distract ourselves. Things will go right and things will go wrong. Harmony is finding that place right in the middle, where you can find peace regardless of what happens. My path from hurry to harmony was a difficult one, but I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. Find your own path to harmony and be …happy.