Message #12725

[elfun]

I love to watch people who take their time. They are a rare specimen. In today’s world, everything is super fast and we are used to it. We walk fast, talk fast, type fast, dress fast, everything is a race. We never have enough time, we are overwhelmed with loads of work, chores, errands. There is no time to smell the roses if you are caught up in the mundane world.

But every now and then I see someone who just does things slowly. They take their time. They walk slowly, not in a lazy way, but they show they are not hurried by the demands of this world. In other words, they don’t give in to the pressure that tells everyone to hurry because they must get somewhere.

The person who doesn’t hurry knows something about life. If you are not in a rush, you do things better and you enjoy life more. Life doesn’t pass you by and you are a spectator. No, you live in the world and you set your own pace. I find this to be a goal worth achieving. Rather than being swallowed by the world and its crazy demands, you find your own pace and you enjoy it, regardless of everyone else around you.

I believe the person who manages to do this is confident because they are willing to take their time. It is hard in a pressured situation to slow down when people around you are rushing. It is even harder when those people are deemed to be important people: bosses, agents, managers, children, elderly parents, or anybody who makes you feel guilty if you do not rush.

But the confident person knows that rushing will do you no good. You might get things done alright, but will you really learn something or take something in? How much of yourself do you put in when you are in a hurry to get things done? How much of yourself do you forget?

Try this for one week. Write it down as a goal for the day if you need to:

    Do things slower than you normally do them.
    Take a little bit more time.
    Put some finishing touches that you wouldn’t normally think about.
    Look at something closer, more in depth.
    Be more aware and more present in everything that you do, from the way you get dressed to working on a project at work, or even when making love!