A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the value of practice in our lives. Ever since, I’ve been thinking about a particular practice I’ve been trying to keep, which is the practice of slowness.
For those of you who know me well, you know I tend to move at a quicker pace. I talk too fast, eat too fast, walk too fast, get ready too fast in the morning, and go to bed too fast in the evening. Add to that driving too fast and reading too fast, and you have a flurry of constantly rushing activity.
I wrote about this same topic just over a year ago, in Steady As She Goes: The Importance of Slowing Down. It boggles my mind that a year has passed and I haven’t managed to slow down a bit. The setting has changed, the job, the house, but the accelerated pace is the same.
My days are spent so quickly I often can’t remember what I did just two days ago. Forget about last week; that’s disappeared into a void of rush. I only know what’s right in front of me: where I have to be this instant, and what I have to get done.
Reading is one particular activity I’ve tried to practice slowness with. You’d think that if I enjoyed something as much as I do reading, I’d want to prolong the experience. But no, I rush through sentences, burn through pages, and sail through volumes. And I’ve tried to slow down, I really have.
I even tried reading out loud for a time, just to force myself to hit the breaks. I figured it was double practice: teach myself to read slower and speak slower. Of course, I couldn’t stand the sound of my own voice; it diminished the words, somehow, took away from the tone of the book. The characters and storyline sounded so much better in my head than they did out in the open, presented in my high-pitched voice, but that wasn’t really the point. The point was to slow down, no matter what.
But it didn’t work. I’d get tired of reading aloud after awhile and be back to zipping through the paragraphs silently, not even fully conscious of what I was doing.
I’ve tried to practice slowness in other aspects of my life, too. Sometimes I’ll make a conscious effort to prepare dinner with intention. I gather the ingredients and put them in a pan; slice a lemon with slow, painfully careful motions; place the halves separately into the lemon squeezer and take my time squeezing the juice over the pan. I even make slow, deliberate movements as I throw the rinds in the garbage and wash the utensils in the kitchen sink.
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It’s all a bit ridiculous, I know. But even these small gestures, this one isolated attempt at practicing slowness, are extremely difficult. I always catch myself hurrying, no matter how hard I try. The habit runs too deep.
I don’t think I’m the only one guilty of this particular habit. I used to work in the financial district of a big city. The streets were always buzzing—with people, with cars, with hurry. It was a melting pot of rush. Everyone was doing it, and I couldn’t help but follow suit. But I told myself that once I got out, I’d stop hurrying.
Well, I’ve been out for going on three years now, and I still haven’t slowed down. I’m more conscious of it than I used to be, that’s for sure. I catch myself more often, and I make frequent attempts to stop, breathe, and move forward with intention instead of always giving in to the mad dash. But it’s so hard to stop.
A couple of years ago, I came up with a mantra for myself. It was two parts, really, two intentions I promised to keep: Do the things you intend to do, and slow down. I haven't always been diligent, but I've never forgotten it.
I want to slow down, to stop clenching my teeth, holding my breath, and tensing my muscles. I want to taste what I eat and feel the ground beneath my feet when I walk on it. Rather than always rushing from here to there, I want to be conscious of where I am. I want to communicate clearly, without my words being garbled and drowned in an outpouring of hurried thought and anxious explanation.
They say that life is short, and we should make the best of all our moments. Some of us might misinterpret this to mean we should pack our lives to the brim, filling up every moment with activity. It’s certainly what I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember.
But I think that “life is short” should be interpreted in a different way, and that the only true way to make the best of a moment is to slow down and savor it. Even if it’s a small, unremarkable moment, like squeezing the juice out of a lemon, it should still be savored. Imagine how differently we’d remember that moment if we gave it a chance to make an imprint on our lives.
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