Sit right here and wait. What? No thank you. Remember when used to actually wait for our parents outside school? We couldn’t text them. We just hoped that eventually they would show up to claim us and take us home.
We just hate waiting. You know it’s true. From drivers who nearly run you down just to get to the same stoplight to the bosses who needed it done yesterday or I want my coffee NOW. We despise waiting. Maybe it somehow reminds us of our humanity and the honest truth that we don’t get everything we want when we want it. Sob sob. I realize how easy it has been to fall into the trap of not wanting to wait. Why is my career not further NOW? Why do I not have the man of my dreams sitting by my side NOW? Where is my lunch NOW? The ironic part of all of this is that we have actually traded our anxious ways and don’t really know what it’s like to live NOW. Being present is something we all struggle with. We love to go and do and live life. But it’s time we all slowed down just a little bit (or rather a lot) to be able to process our lives. Processing what is happening and the actual process behind everything is something we’d rather pass over, forget and live without. When we’ve gone an entire week without assessing what we did well, what we could have done better and perhaps some mistakes we made along the way, we have become to busy. When we are too busy to stop for a conversation that needs to occur with someone or to express thankfulness to someone, we’ve become too busy. Our “busy-ness” will eventually be the death of us all, since running ourselves into the ground will exhaust us both physically and emotionally.
I’ve become very interested in the Slow Movement which believes in more of a mindful way of living- a connection to food, a connection to place, a connection to people and a connection to life. It involves slowing down and really being present in the moment. I prefer to start living more slowly and mindfully as opposed to being forced like a current through the gates of a dam. In the Entrepreneur Issue of Kinfolk, there is an interview with Carl Honore´, one of the world’s most respected advocates of the Slow Movement. You can watch his Ted Talk here.
I decided to include some blogs regarding the concepts of simple living and a slow living mindset, so check them out:
http://www.becomingminimalist.com/becoming-minimalist-start-here/
Home:
Family:
http://lifeshouldbethecatsmeow.blogspot.com/
Other thoughts:
http://valueofsimple.com/start-here/
Let’s take time to be mindful, be present and not be afraid to live a little slower paced as we journey along our path in life.
~lme
The Blackland Ballad 
Great thoughts. I’ve been thinking about this topic for a few years now, but I didn’t know there was a “slow movement.” I’ve always been a slow eater, and I think that has benefits physically and I actually think that correlates to the way we digest information. I’m also a slow learner, but I don’t think I’m a bad learner. We do well to slow down instead of scarfing down culture and knowledge without digestion.
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I agree. I think that it will take extra effort by our generation and following ones to make sure we turn things off, walk away and not feed on all the distraction. I’m realizing how difficult it is to just follow the current of “what’s accepted as normal.” I think sometimes we just don’t actually think about what we think and say and do and whether it’s really effective. Thanks for sharing, Matt 🙂
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