Genius Inherent in Everyone by Walter Russell is the little book I read before going off to sleep last night. As I sit here stuck at a certain point in my manuscript editing process, I find myself reflecting back on some of his insights.

Years ago I was taught that people do their best work while looking out the window. That philosophy seems to fly in the face of employee productivity…or does it?

Russell teaches:

“When you are doing good work, joyfully, and it is going fast with but few mistakes, it is because you are concentrating normally after a period of decentration – or rest.

When you start work in the morning, you will find a period of freshness which will last for two or three hours of normal routine work. Staleness then sets in because you do not balance your concentrative effort. If you open up your thinking to a stopping point – expand it – stop thinking of anything for just a few minutes, you will find that you can go on for another period of two to three hours – and you can keep that up during a whole day of eight or ten hours if you take brief intervals of unwinding the intensity of your concentrative thinking. Just stop and look out of the window – or off into the sky – for even a brief period and your tenseness will unwind just like unwinding a watch spring.

Your ability to utterly decentrate – even for a second – will multiply your power to concentrate.”

Some very wise words coming from a man writing this passage in 1946?

When asked what he personally did in his work to concentrate and “decentrate,” Russell  explained:

“During a two-hour sitting, I pause every half hour or so (not timed by the clock but by my feelings) and decentrate fully. My favorite way of utterly relaxing is to go to the piano and improvise for a short period. 

When I then go back to my sitting, I see things ‘with a fresh eye,’ to use a familiar term, which means that the prolonged period of concentration had dulled my perception during the half-hour period of concentrative work.”

Perhaps it is so that people do their best work looking out the window.

Gotta wrap this up…need to go decentrate. I think I’ll take a break and play “Whispering Hope” on my accordion. Perhaps when I return I’ll find myself unstuck in my manuscript editing process…

March came in like a lion today, blowing its cold wind over the tops of the daffodils that are peaking their heads through the ground. Spring is right around the corner, but just not quite yet. Tonight I am packing the warmest clothes I own for a trip to Chicago in the morning.

Tonight I spent a little time rummaging through poems written by my husband. I am searching for something on balance that I can include in my upcoming book. I’ll keep searching, but for now this one might work…

In the sequence of time, there is a state that exists,

A place where we all belong, if only we could resist

The temptations of our desire.

For minute by minute and hour by hour

The game remains the same.

Yet it is my weakest moments when I am on my knees

That I finally stop and notice the gentle ruffling of the trees,

When I can go beyond my shame

To still waters where the balance remains.

For it is a question of balance, that is the key

To unlock, to free both you and me.

Take direction from no one but your heart.

The signs are clear when you are near

To the pulse that runs through your veins,

To the universe’s heartbeat, for it does contain

The cadence…. the path… the answers…the questions,

Inner guidance, gentle suggestions.

Resonate lightly, weigh heavy

Today and tomorrow for the lessons we are here to learn.

Worry not, release your concern.

For it is in the balance that you will see

There is no time in eternity,

No pain in tranquility,

No need to cleanse in purity.

Only the balance between now and where you will be.