It was one Sunday afternoon. The mountain birds were singing their sweet melodies to entertain the sun. The flowers shown their petals, combined with the sweet scent like gold under the sun. The afternoon seemed promising, and I decide to take an hour rest under a tree to clear my mind. There are many trees in our compound. Some of them are short shrubs that act as flowers while others are tall indigenous tree that can be used to produce timber. The compound had enough shade to hinder the scorching sun from burning the beautiful garden grass. I took a plastic chair and went under the huge jacaranda tree in our compound. The tree was about 300 metres from the main house. It is surrounded by many flower plants and small stones. The tree seems to be at the centre of the garden, and the shade there is incomparable. The jacaranda had flowered, and I liked the purple flowers falling from the tree. Being my favourite colour, I knew relaxing under the jacaranda surrounded by my favourite purple colour would give me the rest I needed. Therefore, I went there and switched off my phone. I had left all the other electronics that could have disrupted me. I needed to be alone, so I went there by myself.
My main idea of isolating myself was to rest and clear my mind from any thoughts and emotions. However, it was not completely possible to clear my thoughts. Instead, several thoughts kept on recurring even if I tried as much as I could to keep them away. Firstly, I kept on thinking about class work and how I wanted to pass my exams. I found myself thinking about different subjects and how I would work hard to ensure I do not fail. I tried to keep my mind free from thinking, but this seemed impossible. Failing is one of the worst fears in my academic life. I found myself thinking of the consequences of failing in my academic work. Surprisingly, I could not stop thinking about myself as a career oriented person who has to achieve goals. Therefore, I found myself smiling because I knew I would make it in the exams. The undying spirit in me kept reminding me that I would make it no matter how hard things seemed. It was completely impossible to keep the thoughts and the emotions out of my mind. In fact, I did not spend ten of the sixty minutes resting. Instead, I spent almost the whole hour thinking about my life, my success and my future.
On the other hand, the environment was a disruption to my rest. Since I had decided to rest under the jacaranda tree, which has beautiful purple flowers bearing my favourite colour, it was too hard to ignore anything falling. I could notice a flower on a branch that was about to fall. I was watching the flower waiting for it to fall. I could then watch the flower detach from the branch and follow it to the ground. More than three times I was tempted to stand up and catch the flower before it fell on the ground. On the same note, there were weaver birds on top of the tree. The birds were silent by the time I went there. However, they started singing in about twenty minutes. I kept looking up to see the birds and check what they were doing. I loved the way they were feeding their young ones with food from their mouths. In about forty minutes, I noticed a large caterpillar crawling on the ground. The caterpillar had different colours, and it looked scary. I am afraid of caterpillars, and I do not like seeing them around me. Therefore, I had to stand up and take my chair to the other side that did not have the caterpillar. I found myself more attentive to the environment than usual. I was completely unable to turn my attention away from physical experiences.
It is important to take some time and rest. Rest is very crucial as it helps a person think about his or her life by letting all other things stop, and allowing the body to decide what to think about. In fact, this experience helped me focus on my goals since I revisited them during the rest experience. It was a very helpful moment in my life. I was able to think about my revising methods and planned how to adjust them for better results. I also had a chance to appreciate the beauty of nature that is seen in a compound where trees are planted and maintained. I did not know that I had such passion for nature until I could hardly concentrate on my rest because of the things I could see. In fact, I will be taking an hour of rest once every month so that I can get silent time to focus on my life and revisit my goals. However, I will not rest under the jacaranda tree again. I need to take a rest at a place where there are less environmental disruptions. This can take place in my bedroom where I will not see a lot of interesting things. I will also prefer taking rest during the morning hours when my mind is not so exhausted. This way, I will be able to rest when am not so tired, giving room for my mind to rest peacefully.