Slowing Down to the Speed of Life

Does life seem like it’s going faster by the minute? Here are some ideas for having (and nurturing) the time of your life.

1. Spend time with the very
young and the very old.
The ideal way to reset your watch is to spend time with someone who doesn’t wear one. Hold a sleeping newborn in your arms and try to match the pattern of her slow, steady breathing. Make no attempt to check your watch, check the stock market or check email while holding her. Or take an elderly friend out for breakfast. Pay attention to how little the food matters to him and how much the conversation does, even if very little is actually said. Notice all the things that he notices—the other customers standing in line, the cinnamon rolls that were just delivered to the next table, the tree in the parking lot. Things you would normally be too busy, hungry, tired or overscheduled to notice. Notice how comfortably your elderly friend stretches out time—yours and his—to maximize the occasion. Notice if that stretch annoys or scares you. If it does, work on that. Learn to slow down to the speed of someone else’s life. It will deepen your own.

2. Do less in a more exquisite way.
One of the reasons that time feels like it’s flying is because you are. Which items on your to-do list, both personal and professional, could be rescheduled, reassigned or removed? How much of what you are doing is useful and necessary and how much of it is driven simply by momentum, habit or guilt? See if you can pare those things down by half. Then take the items that are left, the things that you regard as truly essential, and pick one each week to do with absolute devotion and attention. Or, if that feels too difficult (or time consuming), chose one small piece of the task—like showering in the morning—and do that piece in a more mindful or just plain happy way. Really, really enjoy the peanut butter on your morning toast before you leave for work.

2. Lower your expectations of yourself.
No, this doesn’t mean giving yourself permission to schlep around everyday in a ratty bathrobe, goal-less and grouchy (although there will definitely be those days too). It means giving yourself a break on the expectation of perfection, which doesn’t really exist, except in an imperfect, momentary kind of way. (A violet springing from a crack in the concrete, puppy breath and a kid cutting her own bangs come to mind.) If you try to do everything perfectly, you’ll either end up never truly completing anything or driving yourself completely nuts getting it done. Save your best efforts for the people and projects that matter most.

3. Ask for help.
Stop trying to do everything simultaneously and single-handedly. And stop training the people in your life to expect that from you. People will happily let you do for them however much you are willing to do for them. Sharing the workload teaches kids (and grownups) how to show up for the people they love, pull their own weight and work together as a team. The weight of the world on your shoulders is a lot lighter when you share the load. You’ll reclaim some time in the process too.

4. Keep a Promises-to-Myself Calendar
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? If you didn’t end up being a fireman, is there still something heroic about your life? If you didn’t end up becoming a nurse, did you find something or someone to nurture in the world? Whatever you imagined yourself growing up to be, there is a still an essential piece of that within you, regardless of how much you may have ignored, dismissed or buried it. To reactivate those dreams, or simply recommit to things you love doing but have put off until the “right time” comes along, keep a Promises-to-Myself log. Record what you did—dancing, writing, drawing, volunteering, reading a good mystery, whatever you believe your heart desires—and the date and duration of the activity. Writing it down makes it real and makes you accountable to yourself. If week after week you fail to show up for yourself, fail to do the thing you think you desire most, ask yourself why. Maybe, you need a new dream. Or maybe you need to stop sharpening pencils and just write the poem.

5. Wag more, bark less.
“I love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand.” A lot of people would agree with Charles Schultz’s cartoon character, Linus, on that one. As a concept, peace and goodwill are easy to embrace for most of us. It’s incorporating the reality of what that means into our daily lives that’s the challenge. The next time you want to throttle the driver who cuts you off in traffic, remind yourself that the blood pressure spike you risk is your own. The other driver is clueless, distracted or already gone. There are absolutely things worth fighting for in life. A parking space isn’t one of them. Make your battles worthy of their cause. A good mantra of the day might be the refrain from the song sung at Unity churches across the country: “Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me.” If this is a little too sugary for your tastes, just try wagging more and barking less. (You can get cool hats, tees and sweatshirts with this slogan—wag more, bark less—for the whole family at http://www9.mailordercentral.com/cloudstar/searchprods.asp.)

6. Use the good china.
If you’ve got “special occasion” stuff in your cupboard collecting dust, take it out and use it. The special occasion is now, this very moment. What are you waiting for?