Posted on 30 May, 2008 -
Are you really LIVING?
Does the speed at which we live out lives today mean that we barely have time to appreciate it happening?
And why doing things slower can actually make us more efficient, productive, and HAPPIER
As John Lennon once said, life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.”
There is so much to do, so much to buy and so much stuff to deal with these days that our lives often seem to flash before us in a hectic messy blur of magazine articles half read, unpleasant phone calls to make, yet another meal to plan, and yet another dumping of junk mail, flyers and free newspapers in the hall to deal with.
Part of the problem, of course, is that we are really busy. Our high standard of (material) living mean that we are constantly consuming. And every pound you spend takes up precious minutes of your day. We have holidays to book. Broadband suppliers to shout at. And things piling up in our heads that we want to look up on Google.
We even get bogged down by the fact that we still haven’t got round to cooking any of those delicious recipes that we tore out of magazines - or that those lovely things we just bought at the shops need to be taken out of their packaging…
In some ways our lives are SO rich and full in fact that we barely have time to really appreciate the nice things.
We are always moving onwards to something new. Too busy chatting about what kind of cupboard doors to have in the new kitchen to really appreciate that Jamie Oliver Mediterranean couscous you finally got round to cooking…
Why trying to do things faster reduces the quality of both our work and our lives
The other side of the problem, I believe, is more one of attitude.
I don’t know exactly when, how or why it happened but at some point in man’s history we decided that it was really important to be able to do things FASTER.
However many philosophers or self-help gurus sing the praises of doing nothing, there is always this implicit imperative that we need to get all our jobs done faster.
Yet the crazy thing is that there is plenty of evidence that shows that trying to do things faster often actually makes us do the work less well and in many cases slower.
The Formula One hero, Jackie Stewart, for example, said that sometimes to be faster you have to be slower. The best tennis players in the world don’t run around the court like flapping and flailing amateurs.
And so it is in our everyday life. Rushing about in the hope of trying to get more done often ends up in us getting less done more badly and giving ourselves a headache.
How ten minutes spent doing something PLEASANT can actually make you work much better
Take this morning, for example.
After dropping my youngest daughter off at playschool, one voice in my head said (in a voice that was higher pitched and more hectic and anxious than it needs to be) “right, jump back in the car and dash home to your computer to get that article on ‘slowing life down’ finished”. Another voice (warmer and more relaxed in tone) said “why don’t you go for a walk in the woods right next to the car park first?”
The first voice, of course panicked about the precious TEN MINUTES we would lose from the working day by doing this but fortunately on this occasion the wiser voice won over.
And how absolutely beautiful it was to take a stroll through the huge happy trees and all that silently bustling nature.
I have felt happier, more relaxed and more productive because of it. The whole beginning of this article wrote itself effortlessly in my head as I was breathing in all the beauty. And I have now even had this anecdote to illustrate my point to you!
Those ten minutes of pleasure I whimsically allowed myself to have in the woods turned out to be my most productive time of the day.
Our relationship with time had become dysfunctional
Sometimes, slowing down can actually help us achieve things better or get where we want to go faster and more efficiently. Yet we persist in going about our lives in a mental attitude that can best be represented by a picture of some ludicrous cartoon character psyching themselves up on the touch line of a 100 meter race.
Rushing about isn’t the answer to trying to fit more in. Panic just creates a state of mind that hinders rather than helps.
What you need to do instead is to keep a steady centre - both in the body and in the mind. Be calm and centred. More deliberate and slow. And everything will actually happen for you more effortlessly.
At work, for example, a lot of us try and act and react too quickly instead of taking time to meditate on any work that we have to do first. We even carry out ‘tasks’ like reading the paper or putting the rubbish out as if they too were part of the race.
As Carl Honore says in his book, In Praise of Slow, “As we go on accelerating, our relationship with time grows more fraught and dysfunctional.”
So why this obsession with speed in our society?
So why is it exactly that we are so addicted to speed?
Some people, perhaps, keep themselves always superbusy in order to escape having to face up to their life. Others want to try and fit in as much life as they can because they are frightened of death.
But life, of course, is that butterfly we didn’t allow ourself to watch when we were quickly hanging out the washing before dashing to some other chore. It is that chat we didn’t have with the neighbour because we were on our way to the supermarket. It is the glass of water I am now thoughtfully and consciously slowly and appreciatively sipping that sits next to the real star fish that my daughter left on my desk after it was brought home from a school project. And which I am now taking in my hands and REALLY living…
So many of us are constantly cursing the fact that we never have enough time to do what we want to do. Yet Time will reveal itself as infinite to you if you appreciate it for itself - instead of trying to constantly fill it to bursting.
So what is the answer?
Like any addiction, giving up life in the fast lane is not going to be easy. And there are, of course, benefits in leading the busy lives that we lead.
The truth, however, is that you don’t have to give up much to slow your life down. Indeed, you can stay slow in your mind (in the way that you are living and appreciating what’s around you) even when you’re doing things quickly.
Take ten minutes pleasure time. Punctuate the busy with little pockets of peace. Maintain a slow centredness even when you have lots to do. Learn to trust that sometimes inaction or slow motion can get the best results.
Take a class in Tai Chi, Chi Gong or meditation. Or just spend more time LOOKING at the things in your home, on your desk or in your garden. Concentrate on BEING instead of DOING.
“Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.” Søren Kierkegaard.
“Sometimes, as I drift idly on Walden Pond I cease to live and begin to be.” Henry David Thoreau
And Montaigne, to “fools” that would say ‘I have done nothing today’ would reply: “What, have you not lived? That is not only the most fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations… To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.”
But is this cult of speed really all that bad?
Part of me is very grateful for the fact that we have washing machines instead of washing days and that I can see my parents regularly thanks to the train and the motorcar. But there’s a part of me that wishes a trip to New York still meant leather trunks and a five day ship journey - or that going to see a friend entailed saddling up a horse and stopping at a well for refreshment.
