Want to get ahead?

Slow Down

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” Mahatma Gandhi

I listen to NPR a lot while I'm sewing. Last week, someone interviewed one of the Nobel Laureates who discovered that the universe is expanding rather than contracting. I won't pretend to understand all that he said, but one thing rang true to me. He said that for half the life of the universe, expansion moved at a relatively steady rate. Then, suddenly, it sped up and has continued to expand at a faster rate. Scientists have a lot of theories about why this happened, but as yet they can't say for sure.

It seems to me that life on planet-earth has sped up, too. For thousands of years, human beings were hunter-gatherers. Then, about 10,000 years ago we became agrarian, and 3,000 years ago we began to develop city states. That continued more or less until we entered the Industrial Revolution in the 1800's. Since then, we've jumped into the fast lane. Change is occurring at a much faster pace now than it did just fifty years ago. Technology has both propelled and compelled us to move forward faster and faster. During my grandmother's lifetime, we went from horse and buggy to the space age. In my lifetime, we advanced from plant based medicines to nano- and genetic technologies. Since the 1980's we've progressed from land-line communication to satellite, microwave and the world-wide web. And the list goes on and on.

That's a lot of change. The sheer magnitude and speed of it stresses us in ways we may not even know. We aren't running from saber-toothed tigers nowadays, but we're running none the less. All this change makes it even more important to take some time in your day to slow down. To catch up with yourself. To reconnect all the parts that are flying around. The “Slow Movement” has been born out of the need to have something in one's life that is not changing at the speed of light.

It would be smart to take a fifteen minute meditation break in the middle of the day. Allow yourself to stop completely and recharge your internal batteries. Even better, start your day with 10-15 minutes of silence, take a “stop the world” break in the middle of the day, and end the day with a topping off period of stillness and quiet. Your health and your heart will thank you for it.

                                              In the spirit,

                                                 Jane