There's one response I hear a ton when I suggest practising Ascension or meditation more often: “I’m too busy!”.
And I get it. Right now it’s school holidays for me. Time is tight.
But that's exactly why you need to practice: You're busy. You don't need more busy.
You need calm, clarity, energy, and a sense of humour. You won't get that by just pushing through.
That’s the beauty of the old Zen saying: “You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day — unless you're too busy; then you should sit for an hour”.
The point isn't that you literally need to find an hour you don't have. It's that the 'too busy' feeling is the alarm bell. It's a signal that you need more of the calm and clarity your practice provides, not less.
Changing how you view life
This isn't just about time management. It's about a fundamental choice of how you perceive your life.
Often to get something you really want, you have to say no to something of lesser value. You set up boundaries to ignore the quick fixes so you can build something much more nourishing, sustaining and satisfying.
No to sugary snacks, and yes to something that won’t crash your blood sugar. No to hours empty doom scrolling, and yes to putting your time and creativity into something that will give back. No to yet another way late night binging Netflix, and yes to waking refreshed to start the day well.
Right?
What I’m suggesting here is that in order to get a clear mind and energised soul, you have to say no to that feeling that you’re so busy you can’t stop. A little like if you stop even to breathe, you’ll miss out and waste precious time.
That’s a tempting feeling, isn’t it?
Take a closer look – it goes deep, and is important for you to see and challenge.
Underneath that feeling of being too busy is a cultural belief in scarcity — a belief in a dog-eat-dog world where you have to fight and stress just to keep your head above water. With not enough to go around, you have to come out on top or you’ll end up with less.
Limited resources also mean limited time, right? Time is seen as ticking away — if you don’t chase it hard, you’ll miss out. Which fuels the perception of busy-ness: you rush and push and get hasty. And you know what happens from here.
The Abundance of an 'Infinite Game'
There is another way. There’s a more infinite game, where the truly important things, the things that feed you are unlimited and only multiply when shared.
You know the love that you give only grows. You know compassion, understanding, integrity, courage, presence are limitless. They deepen the more you choose for them. Heck – just seeing them, say on a movie screen or reading them in a book, moves us to want to try and emulate the hero (even if just for a moment til we remember how busy we are).
Time takes on another dimension too:
Players of the infinite game know that when you rush so you don’t miss out, you actually miss out on something crucial: your inner clarity, peace, flow.
You still need to make good use of your clock time, but the choice is knowing there's enough time to get the job done. Maybe it looks different from your expectations, but the truth is, there's always enough. Peace and presence are the ‘resources’ that’ll make sure of this; these are what take you home.
In good shape – not sweating and stressing, but calm and alive, and with the curious, proud (and rightly so), inner smile you get when you know you’ve been challenged but you kept your anchor in your power source. You didn’t give way to those grey fearful voices of ‘not enough’ – and this here is the game itself!
Fight or flow?
Back to the start then –
What you’re choosing between, ultimately, when you’re considering whether or not you have the time to close your eyes in your busy day, is an idea of limitation and urgent, or, enough and important.
Fight or flow?
Say no to limitation and not enough and yes to enough and shared and Quality. Soak in the rewards of your practice and suspend your belief in this: the very tempting perception of a world where you have to eat the other dog – and as quickly as possible before some other dog does.
And who wants to eat a dog? Say no to eating dogs.
Choose to see your life differently. Choose to believe in something more infinite, less limited.
And why not? You’ve tried the hard way, why not try another way, another way of perceiving reality?
What if taking time out gave you more of the things that truly make a life, and help you get things done without stress and struggle?
Why not try it as an experiment?
You can always go back to the old way, but I very much suspect you won't want to.
Go well,
Arjuna
PS.
More than ‘just’ peace and presence – a different whole different world-view. Come learn Ascension (meaning to rise beyond limitation and negativity). It’s the thing that I practice and love teaching because it makes this so simple.
Upcoming courses:
— First level courses: October 17-19 and November 21-23, 2025 (already learned? You can repeat for free!)
— 5-Day Retreat (September 24-28): For those who've taken a course and want to accelerate their journey. Experience profound engagement, meaning, peace and presence in a stunning setting.
There are limited places.
Want to know more or ready to book?
Drop me a line and let me know what you're looking for – I can help you find it.