How Slowing Down Can Be the Greatest Act of Rebellion Against Modern Society
I write this the day after having a breakdown in an Ikea parking lot. Nothing brought on the tears that soaked my face and shook my body, and everything did. When the storm had passed, I slumped back into my car’s cold leather seat and stared at my hands. They sat deflated on my thighs, palms upright. I had too much on the plate I was carrying and right when I pulled into the Ikea parking lot, that plate wobbled and threatened to drop. In the ghostly post-storm stillness, all the deadlines, chores, and items on my to-do list for the week trickled into my mind.
Though I know one of the simplest ways to avoid burnout is slowing down, I always seem to find myself in Ikea parking lots, public bathroom stalls, my mother’s couch, worn and weathered. And I’m always taken by surprise when it hits, as if the storm wasn’t self-inflicted. It’s like I think if I just keep moving faster, I’ll be able to outrun all the stress bubbling underneath the surface. But it always catches up.
We’re raised on various fables, proverbs, and idioms that teach us the importance of slowing down. Slow and steady wins the race, “The Tortoise and the Hare” tells us. Or stop and smell the roses. However, as we enter youthood and then adulthood, society shows us the opposite. We’re taught that slowness is wasteful. We’re taught that our value – and the value of life – is measured by how fast we can go.
Years ago, while sitting on a train that was carrying me from Toronto to Montreal in the middle of the night, I wrote a poem.
Slow down
Take your time
We keep rushing through the days
And we don’t know why
Following every storm, after all that got blown up has settled, these words come back to me. What am I rushing toward? Who am I rushing for? I’m constantly pushed toward physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion in the name of productivity, but productivity can be deceiving.
I believe the need to be productive, and what we consider to be productive, are some of the biggest illusions we’re fed in this life. I think of Michael Moore’s documentary series “Where to Invade Next”. When he asks Italian employers why they give staff so much time off, their answer is simple. When staff are happier, they are more productive. Rest is productive. Allowing ourselves to feel pleasure is productive. And yet, many of us don’t prioritize these things. Or, even worse, feel guilty for allowing ourselves to experience these things.
Whenever I see someone who’s on vacation post a whole dump of photos on Instagram with the same eagerness and excitement as a newborn discovering the world, I praise them. Their glowing faces in those selfies usually look the happiest they’ve ever been and I recognize that they’re so enthusiastic because they’re experiencing the magic of slowing down. I wish for them to always feel that way, not just on vacation. I wish that for myself.
On vacation, the constant chatter that fills my brain, consisting of information and stimulation, pauses. In the quiet that comes with slowing down, I reconnect with myself. Rushing through this life is numbing; like a TV show playing on loop in the background as you fall asleep. It’s when the chatter quiets that you can truly get a good look at yourself and ask yourself what you’re doing and why. This confrontation with the self is one of the most challenging parts of slowing down, but always leads to breakthroughs.
As a yoga teacher, I witness the hardest struggle amongst my students take place during savasana. Some people wiggle and twitch, unable to sit still. Other people get up and leave. I too get restless when meditating, anxious that I’m wasting time. Who’s time I’m worried I’m wasting, I’m unsure.
In the quiet, I find myself realizing again and again that I’ve been letting societal pressures dictate the pace of my life. I realize I have been pushing myself so hard because I have been told to believe that if I accomplish X, Y, and Z before a certain age, I’ll be happy. But I also have seen, in glimpses of slowness, that happiness is something I can have right now.
There’s something romantic about the intentionality of slowness. I surely don’t feel like I’m wasting time when I sit down to enjoy breakfast with my boyfriend without looking at the clock to see if we’ll be late for work, or when I spend a day strolling without a purpose through the sand. I often think of these beautiful moments as snapshots in time, like pressing pause. But maybe they’re actually the moments in which I’ve pressed play, because they’re also the moments I feel most alive. These moments never take place in fast forward. They take place sweetly slow, like honey dripping from my lips.
Modern society has written slowing down off as unproductive because it doesn’t quantify material progress, and this is exactly why slowing down is the greatest act of rebellion against modern society. When we slow down, we rewrite what’s important. We rewrite what’s valuable. Slowing down is a protest against capitalistic worldviews and an embrace of all that is emotionally and spiritually gratifying. Slowing down is a reclamation for enjoying life. So if you can only take one thing from this life, take your time.