The one that interests me as I write this is the Slowness book because the whole issue of why I and others rush through life has been vexing me for a while. I think I mentioned a while ago that until I entered the monastery I felt as if I was totally living my life at speed, on the surface. Skimming.
The other day I was at a meeting and met someone who brought this home to me. I was chatting with the woman sitting next to me. We discovered fairly quickly that we both lived in the Beach area of Toronto. Now the Beach is a wonderful place to live in this city. In five minutes I can be down at the Lake (Ontario) walking along the Boardwalk or through the park or just sitting watching the many faces of the lake. It is utterly beautiful in all weather and I come home refreshed, relaxed and hugely grateful. Just east of me there are also wonderful shops - little shops, pleasant shops. There are as well, an enormous number of restaurants, cafes where you can sit out in good weather and watch the world go by.
So that is the area. There is a friendly, almost small town atmosphere.
As this woman and I were speaking I was raving on about the wonders of the Beach and how I love exploring it. She turned to me and said she had lived in the area for 30 years and never went to the lake and never investigated the stores. Later in the conversation she pulled out from her purse an enormous appointment book. Every page seemed to be crammed with things she was booked to do. I thought then of all that Carl Honore is trying to say about slowness and about how our lives improve immensely when we slow down, breathe deeply and live. He makes very clear that this can't always be the case but that we can work towards it. He says we will be happier and healthier in the process.
What if this woman had died that day, what would her appointment book do then?
What are we doing to ourselves?! What are we missing in the world around us? Who are we missing in the people around us? Why are we inclined to feel guilty when we aren't doing something? Where are we rushing to?
1 comment:
Thanks for the call to stop and smell the roses and for the idyllic picture. How sad that the woman has never once gone to the lake. People shouldn't be in such a hurry. After all, we can make our lives a heaven on earth right now if we only stop and appreciate the good things. If we think we need to postpone all these good things until some vague future date, we may die without ever having lived. And taking some time to ponder what's important may not actually slow us down anyway. Thinking carefully about what we should be doing can prevent us from rushing around and wasting precious time.
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