How speed = stress
In his latest book, In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed, Canadian journalist Carl Honore touts the benefits of slow living.
Honore claims that the old paradigm “time is money” is being replaced by the “slow movement” model. Slow living produces more pleasure and better health. The slow city movement is fostering personal connection over speed. He makes a good point about how holistic medicine is inherently slow. Apparently, Italians have even expanded the slow movement into sex.
As I mentioned before, slow work is producing higher production. Multi-tasking is not productive. From the workplace to the home, Honore claims slowness is growing.
Stress reduction needs to integrate slowness for our kids, too. In his book, Honore reports about kids lacking spark and passion because they’re being pushed with homework and extracurricular activities.
Fortunately, a lot of us are putting the brakes on our speed. We’re making conscious choices to have a richer, whole life by traveling through it slowly.
There are places where speed is good. Having faster Internet connections certainly increases production and reduces stress. The unconscious conditioning around speed that we created in our lives is not good, though. Being mindful of where speed serves us, and where slowing down serves us, will enrich our lives. As my mother used to say to me, What’s the hurry?
