Slow down, you move too fast

Where does the time go? Sammy’s sev­enth month is sneak­ing up from behind and I am not even sure where it came from. Wasn’t I just preg­nant with him a minute ago? Hav­ing teenagers and an infant does make you real­ize how quickly child­hood can zoom by. I joke that the next thing I know, Sammy will be ask­ing for the car keys. It sure feels that way with our older two.

In light of this real­iza­tion, I am mak­ing every effort to slow down and enjoy the ride. That’s what it’s all about, right? I guess being more than 40 this time around makes me wiser (must be all the grey hair). I am much more relaxed as a par­ent, tak­ing things in stride. And you know what I’ve noticed? Sam is a pretty laid back baby, tak­ing things in stride. I’m chilled, he’s chilled — surely there’s a con­nec­tion. Of course, being the fourth child with such older sib­lings, he doesn’t have much of a choice. He pretty much has to go with the flow.

So my mes­sage this week brings me back to a col­umn I wrote a few years ago about the Slow Move­ment which is spread­ing across the con­ti­nents. I had just read a book called, In Praise of Slow­ness: Chal­leng­ing the Cult of Speed by Carl Hon­ore which is worth men­tion­ing again. In it, the author high­lights some of the trends tak­ing place around the world includ­ing the Slow Food Move­ment and other grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions that are encour­ag­ing us to slow down and reclaim our time. He makes the point that say­ing no to speed­ing through life makes us more cre­ative, bet­ter able to work well and pro­duc­tively and not lose our minds in the process.

Stop and think about it. Put down your iPhone or your other needy elec­tronic devices (don’t they always beg for your atten­tion?). The years slip by so quickly, why not do what you can to slow that time by being present in the moment — isn’t that what the present is, a gift? I find myself still get­ting caught up in my “To Do List” and rac­ing from here to there, which often­times can’t be helped. But if your over­all goal is to take it slow, don’t worry so much and be grate­ful for even the small­est of bless­ings, then maybe we’ll be in tune with this planet and our Cre­ator and the answers to our ques­tions and prob­lems won’t get lost in the wind from our hur­ry­ing to win the race.

I don’t know, but liv­ing slowly and pur­pose­fully sounds like a good game plan to me. Before I know it, my hus­band and I will be qual­i­fy­ing for senior seat­ing at Sammy’s high school grad­u­a­tion so I am in no rush!

Tues­day Trip­pier lives in Delaware, is a writer and mother of four with a spe­cial inter­est in green living.

Posted by Tuesday Trippier on Feb 29 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.