Why Don’t We Ever Slow Down Anymore?

 

About a month ago, I got into a car accident — my first one in 18 years. The more I thought about it, the more I thought how amazing that was, considering all the years of commuter traffic and long distance driving under my belt!

And for all the times I had rushed, jumped a lane, turned around, honked my horn… this one time — ONE TIME — I was actually NOT in a hurry! I was on time, and following the rules. Go figure. But the other person was. AND it was only a couple hundred feet from my house, on top of it (what is it they say, about a large majority of accidents happen within a mile from home?). So, inevitably, because he couldn’t wait in bumper-to-bumper traffic for another 50 feet or so, he jumped a turn lane as I was turning, and… our worlds collided.

Luckily, no one got hurt. But because that guy couldn’t wait a few more minutes — maybe even less — he didn’t get where he was going at all until much later on (but I guess with a valid excuse, then). We do so much of that in our society today. Rush, rush, rush. Come on, admit it — how many times have you balanced the wheel of your car with your knee while taking a drink of your _____ (coffee, water, or whatever) and at the same time reaching over for that piece of paper you wrote your _____’s (doctor’s office, golf buddy, or whatever) phone number on, so you can call them and tell them you’re running late because your dog got loose because you left the fence open while taking out the trash, and then you fell in the mud chasing the mutt and had to change your clothes? Or you just HAD to stop at the cleaners on your way home from work, and then ran into the home warehouse store in the next parking lot because the toilet’s been leaking for months, and if you don’t replace the part that’s broken, you’re going to take a sledgehammer and destroy the whole thing? I could come up with scenario after scenario after scenario, but you probably get the point.

Anyway, I think we are so addicted to movement and action today that we somewhere, subconsciously, overload ourselves with way too much to ever do to get it all done. Why? Because I think we’re afraid. Of what, you ask? Probably ourselves. Probably with all the minutia, all the “important” details of the day, we somewhere deep down know that about 85% of it all is useless, trivial matter that doesn’t make a hoot of difference to the world if you do it or not.

I know so many people who scan at least a half dozen news Websites, publications, and then watch the news almost every day, because they just HAVE to know everything that’s going on. I ask, why? And, the bigger question, why do they think that the news actually is talking about what’s going on?? All I ever see in the news today is sensationalism, with very little (if no) objectivism. What happened to the media providing impartial information, so we as the public could decide an opinion for ourselves?

I could not even estimate the amount of junk e-mail we get every day — on all of my family’s 14 e-mail addresses (a mix of business and personal). Isn’t that pathetic? FOURTEEN E-MAIL ADDRESSES!!!! We have spam filters set up, and yet we still get tons of advertisements, mostly from lists where we’ve “opted in.”

Why so many e-mail addresses? Most people I know have at least 3 or 4. But with SO much information in our lives, one of the only ways to try to filter that information is to compartmentalize. Otherwise, we’d never even get to the essentials.

And then there’s TV. Because I refuse to let my children grow up without using their brains (something that is scarily become more and more the norm), we don’t EVER have the TV on when they’re up, except on Sunday mornings from 8-10am (and occasionally if there’s a special movie on cable they might want to watch, like during the holiday season). Otherwise, we’ll sometimes let them watch movies. We don’t have XBox or any game system in the house, and we heavily monitor any Internet activity.

And yet, with all that in place, we still never seem to have enough time for everything we have to do. I, of course, just compound the problem with my own budding business (pun intended), because any start-up takes double time for quite awhile. But between the business, our heavy involvement in the Tae Kwon Do school we attend, and all the other details of our daily lives, I have to fight to get 6 hours of sleep at night. Which has taken a toll on my physically. How many people do you know work on their feet for at least 5-6 hours a day, usually 7 days a week, take Tae Kwon Do 3-4 times a week, teach Tae Kwon Do 1-2 times per week, and still manage to gain 20 pounds in a year-and-a-half, even though I eat very sensibly and organically? You tell me when I can fit in anything else! Before I left my corporate job, I was in my office at my desk or usually in meetings most of a 9-10 hour day. I would get up at 5am to run 3-4 times a week, but that was to compensate for me sitting on my butt. And I still had the Tae Kwon Do at night. Oh, and I did somehow manage to find the time to do yoga a couple of times of week — something that I miss with a passion these days. Same eating habits. But it seems that as I’ve gotten even busier, my metabolism’s gotten even slower.

It’s like the speed in which we live today is like an addictive drug to our systems. It is in mine, anyway. Because since today I have to move at light speed (vs. sonic speed, I guess), has my body actually SLOWED itself down to try to neutralize that?? I don’t know. It’s just pisses me off, though — even though I really don’t have time to worry about it! So now what am I doing? I’m getting up EVEN EARLIER so I can try to push in a 20 minute jaunt on the elliptical machine in my spare room upstairs. Heck, soon I won’t have time to sleep at all. Maybe I won’t miss it, then!

Here’s the saddest part: I’m far from alone. I know that. Actually, almost everyone I know has their life set at a frantic pace. What are we racing for? Where are we racing to? What’s the finish line? We keep on saying we’re going to slow down, but we never do. Are we afraid of not being in the race? I don’t know.

I do have to say that working with plants has given me a LITTLE better perspective, because plants will grow as they want to grow — you can help them along, but don’t hurry them! We should all be like that sometimes, I think. And sometimes, when I’m down there in the nursery, in utter silence except for the ventilation fans and the outside sounds of nature (or just nature, when I’m working with the plants outside), I skip a breath, because I’ll experience this moment of utter… Silence. Peace. Pace. This is especially so when I see a baby lizard sitting quietly on a basil leaf, checking me out to see if I’m a menace. Or when I watch a beautiful yellow and black field spider sitting patiently on her web, waiting for that next grasshopper to land right in her trap. Or when I see the alien-looking praying mantis drinking water from the drops on a leaf. The best was when I actually saw a hummingbird land — yes, LAND — on something to take a breather.

My next door neighbor has discovered this world, as well. He’s been sort of forced into a semi-retirement because of a bout with cancer last year. And now he takes the most breathtaking photos of these things, and more. I just wish I could bring more people I know into this world, because the moments when I’m there, it’s like I’m getting oxygen after being deprived from being under water for too long in a pool. And it’s far more beautiful than the gray, gray, gray of rush, rush, rush!

I wish I could keep myself in that world, too. But inevitably, the rest of the world will force itself back in, as soon as I go back to my office and check my e-mails, get a phone call, think of the list of the thousand things I have to do. But I have moments, and that’s what keeps me sane… at least I have those, and I didn’t have them before. I guess that it really what Eckhart Tolle is trying to say in his Power of Now teachings (you can get the basic book from Amazon.com or pretty much any other major bookstore/site), but it takes us soooo long to get there today.

What makes me saddest is that it seems we don’t have time to really have friends anymore. I mean, REAL friends. There are a few who I thought were my real friends, but I guess I was mistaking the word “friend” for “good acquaintance.” These are people who I spent years with, collaberating and commiserating through our lives’ ups and downs, professions, marriages, children, and everything else — but when I stepped out of the world we had in common, they obviously didn’t even have time to keep a compartment for me. There’s one person whom I considered a very good friend, and I thought for sure that she and I would be even closer, since she, too, had started and grown a business of her own, and knew exactly what I would be going through. I spent years standing by her side, listening to her growing business woes, giving her advice. So I thought she’d be there for me, too, since I’m now going through what she did more than a decade ago. I was obviously mistaken; I’ve seen and talked to her maybe a total of a half dozen times in the past year-and-a-half, and most conversations have been really topical. Sad. There are a few others with whom I still communicate regularly — we do lunch once a month or so and e-mail back and forth — but that is pretty much all we can spare. It’s not that I’ve gotten off of the roller coaster ride, I’ve just gotten off of the same one as theirs, and gotten onto a different one. So, for many, I understand, but for that one friend who’s been here, done this, and really SHOULD understand…. that’s the one I DON’T understand. And yet, one of my very, very best friends from my early 20’s – to clarify, someone I was close to more than 15 years ago — I can not speak with for six months, and then when we talk, it’s like I saw her yesterday.

Anyway, the point is, try to find a moment. Just one. When you can see that little lizard, or watch the patience of the spider. And then maybe you can let in other moments… just maybe we can all get to know each other again, and filter out all of that useless stuff. With our race to get more and more into our lives, and process more and more information, we’re losing ourselves and our connection with each other.

Well, I could go on and on, but I have Tae Kwon Do to get to….