Slow Down - instant success still looms behind the corridors...

Do you remember the days when you wrote a letter to a friend (yes an actual paper version in a paper envelope) and waited patiently days to weeks for a reply? Do you also remember waiting to share the home phone that was plugged into the wall and the hand piece was attached to a curly cord? Or maybe you can recall your parents talking about those times of yesteryear.

Our generation have everything at our fingertips, instant downloads, SMS, Facebook, everything is instant; we are not used to waiting long for anything. Think back 30 years or ask a parent if you aren't that old; we used to wait for letters to arrive in the mail (maybe weeks), and you would have to wait to use the home phone.

Being bombarded with instant access to everything has encouraged us to expect instant success with almost everything else in life as well. With perhaps the exception of mastering an instrument, sport or art. Mastering your craft still takes time, discipline and actual love. Love for yourself and the many mistakes made in the pursuit of your craft and love for the actual craft itself.

Yet even in these pursuits, instant success still looms behind the corridors, as scientists prepare special suits to make athletes swim and run faster and dance and gymnastic technique is thoroughly examined for better aesthetics, agility and overall performance. This isn't a bad thing for the art, just look back at some old footage of the dance masters one hundred years ago and all though they display great dramatic stage prowess there dancing technique and ability cannot match the incredibly fine tuned technique of dancers today. All this does come at a cost though, and that cost is a generation who don't know how to slow down, or actually feel guilty if they haven't got lots of things on the back burner.

“We pass violets looking for roses; we may pass contentment looking for victory.”

How many parents feel like they may be letting their kids down if they don't have an extra-curricular activity on every afternoon? Kids need afternoons by themselves to be creative and learn to stop and listen to their breath, the birds out side, the wind blowing in the leaves of their favourite tree house; just as adults need time to go for a walk in nature, take a long bath or dance crazy to their favourite songs.

To be really content, we need to slow things down a little, slow down our fast expectations, our pace, our heart rate, our extra -curricular activities and have some ‘me’ time. This time is needed to digest and assimilate our busy lives and how we physically, mentally and emotionally sit in our lives.

 “The best things in life are nearest: breath in your body, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, the right path before you. “ ~ Robert Louis Stevenson.

When you thing about slowing down it all seems so simple right, so sensible. Why didn't I think of it before, or act on it before?

So start now, take time out today to slow down your thoughts, breath, heart beat and life. All we need to do is go back to the beginning, back to how we started, with a slow pace and light agenda.

“Occasionally what you have to do is to go back to the beginning and see everything in a new way.” ~ Peter Straub.