Slowing Down to the Speed of Life*
The drive usually takes 90 minutes. It’s a familiar route and no navigation is required. I don’t know how many times I’ve made the drive over the last 40+ years. I do know it’s always been a race against the clock, against some imaginary finish line to see how quickly I can make the journey.
Today it takes me four glorious, delicious, connecting, exploring hours. I drive slower. I stop and explore the creek with a waterfall dam. I resist the strong temptation to listen to a great book I’ve been reading. I pause and wait for my niece to get off work and we chat for almost an hour. I take in the sights of the farmland- gently rolling hills, cattle grazing, windmills. I breathe in the change in color of the corn and soybeans as I journey from beginning towards the end destination.
I have to ask myself ‘what have I been doing for the past 40+ years in that I never gave myself permission to take the slow way?’ Whatever was the rush? It is like there’s a part of me, and maybe most of us, that’s pre-programmed by society to do everything so fast to see if we can beat the imaginary, always ticking clock. This slowing down and scheduling lightly may be a side-benefit of COVID-19 that invites us to be more child-like. Have you tried getting a two-year-old to hurry? It is not so effective and that is my mirror, the two-year-old invitation to just slow it down.
I’ve been trying to take a more leisurely path the last few years. Today’s journey reminds me just how much more opportunity I have to slow down. It was unplanned and spontaneous, this leisurely drive with stops and slow speeds. Yet it was subconsciously planned because there was nowhere I needed to be, no commitments until that evening. In truth, I was so leisurely my arrival for dinner with Dad was five minutes late.
Where are we invited to take it slow? What can you do (or not do) in the next hour that allows you to take twice as much time? Or perhaps over the next day, or the next week. I’m going to do so. Let me know how it works for you.
*This is also the title of an older book, by Richard Carlson, that is full of suggestions for slowing down.