Slow Down and Focus

The world most of us live in is hectic, fast-paced, fractured, hurried.
What’s more, most of us are conditioned to think this is the way life should be.

Life should be lived at break-neck speed, we believe. We risk our lives in cars and we break the speed limit, rushing from one place to another. We do one thing after another, multi-tasking and switching between tasks as fast as we can blink.

All in the name of productivity, of having more, of appearing busy, to ourselves and to others.

But life doesn't have to be this way. In fact, I’d argue that it’s counterproductive.

If our goal is to create, to produce amazing things, to go for quality over quantity, then rushing is not the most effective way to work. Slowing down and focusing is always more effective.

Rushing produces errors. It’s distracting to flit from one thing to the next, with our attention never on one thing long enough to give it any thought or create anything of worth.

Hurrying produces too much noise to be able to find the quiet the mind needs for true creativity and profound thinking.

So yes, moving quickly will get more done. But it won’t get the right things done.

The most important step is a realization that life is better when you move at a slower, more relaxed pace, instead of hurrying and rushing and trying to cram too much into every day. Instead, get the most out of every moment.

Is a book better if you speed read it, or if you take your time and get lost in it?

Is a song better if you skim through it, or if you take the time to really listen?

Is food better if you cram it down your throat, or if you savour every bite and really appreciate the flavour?

Life is better when unrushed. And given the fleeting nature of this life, why waste even a moment by rushing through it?

"Slow down and enjoy life.  It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why"
~~ Eddie Cantor

View for the Cahill Expressway, Sydney Australia. Walking with a friend last September, I stopped and took this photo after climbing the stairs. I love my city!

Turning Pain Into Knowledge

Sometimes when I think back on various phrases of my life, it’s hard not to think of all the hurt.

The misunderstandings, the pain, the missed connections. The ways that I screwed up.

The residual frustration about all the ways that other people - weren’t able to be the people I wanted them to be, which by the way is not their fault!

All that time spent being annoyed about how hard it is when you "can’t get blood from a stone".

My focus was in the wrong place.

But here’s what the Word of the Year reminds me to do:

I am allowed to have my grief and my pain. And I can also look at all that agony and remember that it’s business school tuition.

Instead of a diploma, I can just frame the Word of the Year and put it on my wall. And look forward to the next one, because it will be unbelievably useful.

We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process.

We let people have their own experience, and we don’t give unsolicited advice.


"Those who have knowledge, don't predict. Those who predict, don't have knowledge."
~~ Lao Tzu


Spent a lovely day with Charlie and Joseph on 13 April 2011. We caught a ferry from Manly to the city and Charlie who is not quite seven took this photo of the seagull landing near where we were sitting.