#11 Cherish Your Slowness

I think another aspect of cherishing your life is slowing down. This goes hand-in-hand with the theme of reflecting that we have talked about. But it seems to me like most people either live a slowed-down life already, or they don’t know how to. So I’m either preaching to the choir, or giving advice to those who can’t use it. Today I want to focus a little bit on how to slow down if you aren’t there and don’t know how to get out of the fast lane. 

The first way that I have learned to slow down is to schedule less tasks for any given day. I get that sometimes you can’t help it, but the less you can fully commit to, the slower your life will be. I have started to pick just one thing that I would like to accomplish before my day is up. It might be one movie that I go see, or a trip to the gym. Whatever it is, it’s the one thing I will do all day. Everything else can either happen another day, or not at all. 

But then you might ask how we should fill the rest of our time. I mean, not all things to accomplish take an entire day, right? Are we supposed to just drag things out for the entire day? What if we don’t need all that time? 

Great questions! The short answer is who cares! You could scroll through your phone, take a long, hot shower, play video games or watch a show. It doesn’t matter as much, so long as it isn’t scheduled and committed. I think this helps relieve some of the pressure so that we don’t care too much about filling every minute of our schedules. Take time to be spontaneous!

I think this also helps us enjoy the tasks we do commit to as well. I know my best gym days are the ones where I don’t have anything going on afterwards. I wind up spending more time there, just having fun saying “screw it, I’ll do a few more reps! And maybe I’ll hit the hot tub after as well” Once we start to ease out of the time-filling mindset, we can start to enjoy things more. I have been trying this on for size lately, and I have found myself enjoying my time more. It helps me be more patient as well because I have nowhere else to really be.

It kind of reminds me of an analogy that was given to me in school as a kid. You may have even heard it as well. It’s the analogy of the jar full of marbles. My teacher threw a bunch of marbles in a jar until they reached the top. Then she asked “is the jar full?” The right answer was no. There were still cracks in between to pour sand. After the jar was filled with sand, the teacher repeated the question. The answer was still no, because the jar could still be filled with water. 

The moral of the story was that there are always little cracks in our schedule that we could fill with productivity. And while I think that’s a great mindset for those times when you have a lot on your plate, I say we should see the jar as full when all the marbles go in. Why? Because the rest of the space is actually already full. Full of air to breathe, that is. We need to leave time for breathing room. Otherwise, we will drown ourselves in all of our to-do’s. 

And I say this as someone who is still learning how to get this right. I had a busy weekend, and although I still have all of Sunday to crash, I’m almost a little disappointed at how busy I have been. I want more time to chill before the next week begins, before the holidays begin. So I offer you this advice as the writer of the map, not the master of the road. But once the territory is charted, it’s far easier to walk, and I hope you’ll walk it with me. 

So let’s get to walking! Look at your to-do list, and scratch off everything that can wait. Get pickier about what you list as essential, and join me as we learn to cherish our slowness. I pray that your day is blessed, and that you begin to learn how to slow yourself down. Ultimately, I pray that you learn how to cherish your life.

Until Next Time

May Peace be your Guide