Fast-speed internet. Fast cars. Fast food. No one has time anymore to enjoy life, to take things easy.
Every second of our day needs to be used up “doing”, “buying”, “talking”, “text-ing”, when is enough, enough?
Where’s the time to contemplate, to reflect, to just be in the moment?
We admire how quickly we get things done, being quick often translates to being smart, no one wants to be called “slow”…
But while we rush around ticking-off a truly impressively long checklist of items, are we actually accomplishing anything besides looking fantastically busy?! Where is the time to savor life? How do we know if all the busy-ness is taking us where we want to go? Do we even know what we want anymore, if we spend every second of our waking day just rushing around to complete a list of tasks – who has time to think in our speeded up version of daily life!
Even if we knew exactly what we want in our lives, do we make the mistake of not knowing when or how to stop and smell the roses?
It Starts with Food, Slow Food
Over twenty years ago Italian chef and media activist, Carlo Petrini, took on fast food giant, McDonald’s when the food chain tried to open an outlet in Rome. He organized a protest and tried to keep McDonald’s out of Italy, he was protesting against the whole ‘culture and concept’ of fast food.
Petrini became the father of the Slow Food Movement. Since then he has gone on to found the first “university of gastronomic sciences” and was even a Time Magazine hero in 2004. The philosophy of slow food is not just about the speed of consumption, it is also about the fair and reasonable production of food, beginning from farming, all the way through to the preparation and consumption of food. It’s also about food biodiversity, and in recent years, the movement has been cautioning against over-reliance on only the most easy-to-get-to-market foods.
Savoring the good life and living the simple life, these are not new concepts, but rather it is our modern day obsession with living-in-the-fast-lane, always comparing, living reactively - buying, upgrading, tossing out the old - that is unsustainable, especially at the rate of population growth we are witnessing in the world today.
VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY, "Small is Beautiful" & BUDDHIST ECONOMICS
In the 1960’s, British economist E. F. Schumacher was advisor to Bhutan’s king when he coined the concept known as “Buddhist Economics” which is inspired by the Buddhist notion that we insure proper human development by doing work that benefits others and is good. The British Times Literary Supplement included Schumacher’s 1973 best seller, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered in its list of 100 most influential books published after World War II.
In Small is Beautiful Schumacher questions conventional neo-classical economic notions that all “growth is good” and “bigger is always better”. In short, Schumacher is questioning the wisdom of consumption-crazed nations.
Duane Elgin has been lecturing for over three decade on the idea of “voluntary simplicity”. He says, “we can describe voluntary simplicity as a manner of living that is outwardly more simple and inwardly more rich, a way of being in which our most authentic and alive self is brought into direct and conscious contact with living.”
SLOW FOOD, CITTASLOW, THE WORLD INSTITUTE OF SLOW & SLOW PLANET
Proponents of Slow have been around since the beginning of time. In many advanced ancient civilizations such as ancient China with the Tao and Tai Chi, in India with meditation and yoga, in ancient Greece with the philosophy of Epicureanism, our conscious effort to slow down the pace of living have been practiced by people who nonetheless get things done and have made huge contributions to their worlds, even without the hustle and bustle we’ve come to associate with successful people.
In a world built for speed, "Time" is our enemy. We've come to believe erroneous things like old is bad, young is good, or that we should travel half way around the world to see 7 cities in 3 days. But ask yourself this, "Where is the dignity and peace-of-mind in choosing to live in this rush-and-panic world of our own making?"
Let's take back control ... let's make "Time" our friend. Even if it means that we don’t do half as much, but, we could instead choose to take the necessary time to insure that everything we do, is more meaningful that it all comes together to nourish our soul and make us truly happy to be alive.
This month iCUBED.us celebrates the Philosophy of SLOW and we invite you to think about whether you need to reassess your life, slow down and reduce stress by learning to choose how-you-spend-your-time wisely. Time management is an art ... slowing down may be one thing that can help you find success, happiness and fulfillment.
.
.
.
|
..... Stop here
Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
