Fast food… high-speed internet… two-day delivery… it seems everything is operating at a faster, more efficient rate every year. Or is it? High-speed efficiency is one of those un-questioned societal values that has been planted in our consciousness without us really stopping to question what it means. After all, who would argue against convenience? Don’t we all want to get from here to there faster, obtain our goods faster, and get our tasks done faster?
I have spent the past couple of years exploring an interesting paradox: the more I slow down, the more I find I am living a richer, fuller life. When I cycle to the store instead of driving, I feel the air on my skin, smell the leaves, and feel grateful for the quiet town I live in. When I slow down further and walk, I notice the birds and squirrels. If I sit still and get quiet, the tiny, hidden world of butterflies and bees and frogs comes out from hiding and shows itself to me.
We pay a price for our demand for speed. We lose touch with a natural world that nurtures us and helps us remember who we are. We create punishing schedules for warehouse and factory workers and delivery drivers who are pushed to exhaustion meeting the pace of our demand. And we miss out. We fail to be present to savour the delights the world is offering us.
My husband and I have a daily after-work ritual. We sit down with a coffee, put on soft music, look out the window, and talk about our day, about life, about things that matter. This slow-down time brings us back to ourselves and to each other. It is our favourite time of the day. We feel no pressure to be striving, doing, and filling every second with busyness and so-called productivity. Our brains rest from device screens, and we come back home to the real world—the one we can touch, smell, taste, and feel.
I believe this is why so many people love camping; it slows them down and makes them present to themselves and the natural world. But we don’t have to wait until summer holidays to experience these gifts. We can slow down every day to take in the little things. Strangely enough, we stretch time when we do this. We lose the low-grade anxiety that life is running like sand through our fingers. The more we become present, the more fully we live.
What could a daily slow-down ritual look like for you? An evening walk in the park? A bike ride in the country? Reading with your family? Sitting outside around a fire? Why not create one?
