Click - Click - Click ========================= We had finished eating at an oriental restaurant in Barcelona. I learned in Spain, at least in Barcelona, they dont hurry with your check after your meal. Actually, they dont bring it at all until you ask for it. Quite different from America where your dishes are often removed while you are still chewing and your check is plopped down before youve swallowed. So we sat talking, no check in sight. Click - Click - Click What was that sound? I looked around. It was emanating from the cash register. There was an elderly Chinese woman standing there. She was adding up the days receipts as she passed receipts from one pile to another like playing cards. The Click - Click - Click was the sound of the beads hitting each other on an abacus. The receipts moved by with amazing speed as her hands swiftly and expertly manipulated the ancient adding machine. I watched - she added. In case you dont know, an abacus is an ancient mathematical machine. It looks like a picture frame with wire rods running through it with beads the size of marbles on it. It looks like a childs toy. Click - Click - Click No power cord. No batteries. No plastic. No LCDs, LEDs, FETs, LSIs, or CRTs. No DOS, Linux, Palm OS, Android, iOS, Windows 98, 2000, ME, CE, NT, XP, 7 or 8. Just wood, wire, beads, fingers, and an old lady with focus and skill. Click - Click - Click The receipts flew by. I watched. I wondered, could I add faster with a modern calculator? I watched one pile of receipts shrink as the other grew. I type fairly fast. I can add on an adding machine fairly fast. Ive run a cash register and worked in an accounting office. I estimated my speed with the benefits of the latest silicon technology against the old lady with wood, wire, and beads. As I watched the receipts fly, I knew I couldnt keep up. Years ago, the army tested the electric calculator and its best operator against a trained abacus user. Guess who won? The abacus was not only faster, but produced less mistakes. So whats the point of Click - Click - Click? I have the latest gadgets, the most up to date electronics. The phone on my belt has a calculator that would perform all types of calculations with lightening speed. There was no way the abacus could compare with the speed of my high-powered megahertz processor. Then why did I feel I would lose in a contest with the abacus? Because the limiting factor was not the machine, it was me. We are conditioned to think in terms of the limiting factors in life as the things around us. We want faster computers, faster cars, faster internet connections, faster flows of information, better stuff, better this and better that. We think, If I can just get better stuff around me, stuff will be better in me. The limitations in life are not external, they are internal. The old lady took a simple device but used it with skill and focus. You will be amazed at what you can do with the simple things of life with skill and focus. You will be amazed that often you can accomplish much more than people with much more. Its not what you have, its how you use what you have. The abacus is a calculating device. As you grow in spirit, you calculate things differently. With wood, wire, beads, fingers, focus and skill, she added faster than most with the most expensive of modern machines. She illustrated a principle of life. ~A MountainWings Original~
Posted on: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 08:11:17 +0000