To Move Slower: My New Year's Resolution in 2013

"I will love with urgency but not with haste"
-Mumford and Sons, "Not with Haste" 


I should probably start with an admission here: what follows isn't really a resolution. Maybe that makes my title a lie. By not a resolution, what I mean is I didn't come up with it on January 1 anymore than it will end on December 31. I will fail hundreds of times along the way. It's also not something that can be "accomplished," "achieved," or measured in a tracker. This has been developing in me for a while now, and it's less like an attempt of willpower and more like a paradigm shift or an adjusted priority or an overarching principle.

So no, I'm not vowing to lose weight or to work less or to earn a promotion or even to necessarily "spend more time with family." But what I hope for in 2013 is to move slower. Yes, slower. Whether I am cooking, eating, reading, listening to a song, working, moving from one place to another, engaging in conversation, building a relationship, grocery shopping, or writing, I do not want to be in a rush.

Moving too fast robs us of the pleasure of whatever it is that we're doing. It prevents us from deep connection with the people around us. And I would also suggest that moving too fast does not lend itself to doing whatever it is that you're doing as well as possible.

In this efficiency-glorifying, corporate-ladder-climbing, instant-gratifying culture--all of which I'm surely implicated in and more dependent on than I'd like to be--this will be no easy or automatic endeavor. I should also admit that for as many bad habits to which I am prone, laziness and sloth have never been tempting been very tempting for me. The opposite--working too hard and moving too quickly--often are. Like many of my friends, one of the reasons slowing down is so difficult for me is because when I slow down I begin to feel things my body is working hard to avoid.

Dr. Brene Brown, a vulnerability researcher, talks  in her videos about full-hearted living. She tells this funny little anecdote about how she wears a ring with a spinner. She calls it a boundary ring, and whenever someone asks her to do something, she spins the ring three times before answering. While she spins it, she says to herself: "Choose discomfort over resentment." This allows her to say "no" more often, something so many of us would benefit from doing. Brown does this because she understands that time is our most valuable resource. Whenever we choose to do something, we're choosing to not do something else.

So what is the cost? What is the risk associated with this conviction? Well, obviously, I won't get as much work done. If worthiness doesn't come from within, no amount of achievement is going to earn it, anyway. The to-do list might stay somewhat full. I'll say no more than I used to. All worth the possibility of full-hearted living, I think. One friend of mine calls this, "being present."


Questions for the reader: How difficult is it for you to slow down? Do you have any interesting "New Years resolutions"?