Following last week’s inconclusive post, I felt it necessary to explore the subject of slowing down. After talking about the natural human desire for speed and its implications, I wanted to look at the implications of the opposite. What happens when we slow down? Is it beneficial or detrimental? Could it be the one thing that the world needs right now? Hopefully we’ll arrive at a place where we’re able to make that conclusion.
It was very early in my life when I started my school journey. I was in Grade one by the age of four, ready to conquer the world as little as I was. I got accustomed to being the youngest kid in every one of my classes throughout my school years. It was all but a common thing. So common that I even started to forget at some point, that I was the youngest. Being the youngest, I always felt like everything was coming at me with great speed. Sometimes it was exciting, other times it was terrifying.
At some point in my life, the number of people that would make reference to my age with regards to the stage of life I was currently at started to increase. So much so that I began to have expectations of myself that were tied to my age. I would think “I should have this sorted by the time I’m 18, 21, 25 …”. It didn’t matter what the goal was, almost each one of them was linked to age. An age of commencement and an age at which I expected to attain that specific goal. I guess it didn’t help either that I was naturally able to pick up new skills really fast. It didn’t take me long to figure out how something worked. A culmination of these and many other factors made me a person that always wanted to find the quickest way to a destination.
I guess now at the stage that I find myself, I question a lot of my reasoning at previous stages of life. As is or should be the case, in order to grow we must earnestly seek for answers, for truth. I find myself on a journey that begs for the truth about going fast versus slowing down. It’s an equally matched tug of war. On both ends there are pros and cons, benefits and drawbacks.
It was mentioned in the previous post that going fast may not always been good for us biologically, emotionally or even both. We crave speed but in excess, we quite often cannot keep up with it. So, it leaves us with this, the need to slow down.
Whenever I ask myself the question, “Why am I afraid to slow down?”, I always find myself being narrowed down to one of these things. The fear of becoming obsolete, the fear of missing out or the fear of not meeting my personal predetermined deadlines. Ninety percent of the time, my reason fits in one of these classes and I have realised that I may not be the only one who feels this way. Maybe you can relate in one way or another.
Maybe your fear of slowing down is connected to a fear of becoming obsolete. This reason is one that is found more commonly in the world of content creators and their creations but is not in any way limited to this world. It’s a legitimate fear, one that I face from time to time. Sometimes as humans in general, we feel the need to constantly be on top of things because we are worried that if were not, we’ll be forgotten. I guarantee you that this factor has at least a part to play in some of the most notable publicity stunts ever witnessed. Attention can be addictive once attained. It leaves a person in a state where they feel slowing down is a threat to the attention that they currently have.
Maybe, just maybe, your fear of slowing down is connected to a fear of missing out. As mentioned in the last post, things happen so quickly in this digital world that we live in now. I know that in the past I have feared slowing down because for some reason the world always has some extravagant event when you decide to take a day off. It seems like something extra ordinary always happens when we’re not paying attention. And so, we keep moving as fast as we can, hoping not to miss out on anything, while missing out on the most important things. Counterintuitive it may seem, we do it anyway.
Maybe you have an achiever mindset. You constantly need to be knocking something of your to do list to feel like a functional human being. And so, your fear of slowing down may be connected to a fear of not meeting predetermined deadlines. And I’m not speaking of the real non-negotiable deadlines. It’s those deadlines that we impose on ourselves because we have an idea of how our life should play out. So we work, work and work until we eventually burn out, leading us to do what we should have done in the first place; slow down.
Whatever the case, whatever the reason, if we are being honest with ourselves, we often still end up at the same conclusion.
I think I now see what my younger, immature self didn’t see at the time. I’m starting to realise now that the most memorable things take time and allow us to slow down along the process. Time in this case doesn’t have a lower or upper limit. But it’s a space that allows for patience. Memorable things happen when life teaches us to be patient. Whether by choice or forced upon us, at some point we all arrive at a border that cannot be crossed without patience.
I think we can all agree that there are certain things that are better of coming at us slow than fast. While this type of thinking will continue to be countercultural for the next few years at least, I am certain that we’ll arrive at this same conclusion. There are just some things in life that should not be put in the microwave. Some dishes require a slow cook. Let alone a prior marinade, for the sake of being immersed in the beautiful flavours that this life has to offer. The ones that result in a sweet-smelling aroma.
Like it is with speed, we also ought to be careful not to slow down just for the sake of it. There needs to be purpose even in our slowing down. We need to know what the implications of our slowing down will be.
In this life, there will be times when we will need to go fast and times when we will need to slow down. Both have their place in the grand scheme of things, and both will have implications being positive and negative. But whatever the case, we must strive to make decisions that are healthy for us. Decisions that have purpose. A reason, a hope, a dream.
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