Slowing Down

Recently I have been thinking about slowing down. Of course, say my friends, you have reached retirement and so that is a legitimate proposition. But then, when I connect with some of my retired friends, one of their complaints I hear most often is that they are busier than ever.

I conclude that busyness has become one of our culture’s virtues. We tend to think more highly of people whose calendars are chock-full than of those who have a few open spaces left.

A lot has been written in recent decades about margins and boundaries. How long would you stay with a book, for example, that had no margins. Most of the book would likely remain unread. Slowing down reminds us that we are most fully alive when we live within appropriate boundaries that allow some room for surprise and flexibility. A good cup of coffee is best taken slowly, as is a good quality wine! So why do we gulp down our lives so quickly?

Beyond being better for you, slowing down is becoming imperative in our day because a fast life always leaves a larger ecological footprint than necessary. This is so very evident in the fast food industry to which many of us have become enslaved. We grab our food on the run and wolf it down on our way to the next thing on our calendars. Of course, on our way in we drop a large bag of paper and plastic into the garbage. Sometimes we even just throw it out the car window. We have yet to add up the personal and social cost of giving up a regular, slow-paced, family dinner.

Feeling the need to take in every possible event we can, we zip around in our vehicles and fly around the world lest we commit the “sin” of missing out on something. Of course, in the process we build up a large number of experiences we can share with our friends. The only problem is we don’t really have time to get together much for a leisurely sharing of life. And at the same time we keep on using up more and more of diminishing fossil fuel reserves of the world.

One commitment I have recently made is to literally slow down while driving. I have developed a 90-90 principle which states that 90 percent of the time on the road I will not exceed 90 kilometers an hour. Some of my trucker friends tell me that such a move can make the difference between breaking even or earning a decent living – given the amount of fuel you save at the slower speed. 

An additional benefit I experience is that every time I set my cruise on 90, I am reminded to slow down in other areas of life as well. Perhaps I can retrain myself to leave a smaller ecological footprint as I learn to slow down and actually have time to smell the flowers.

By Jack Heppner