Slow Is The New Superhero

Does the following sound at all familiar to you?

You wake up at 6:30 a.m. and do a workout. Or maybe some household chores, pet care and kid prep.  You shower and plan your to-do list for the day. You gulp down a big cup of coffee and whatever is easiest for breakfast (if you eat at all, that is). You make it to work right on time, or perhaps 20 minutes early to check your overflowing inbox of emails and then race off to a team meeting or to work on about three projects. Your day literally races by as you leap tall buildings in a single bound. You charge off to daycare or after school care to pick up your kids or to run errands and make it home to prepare a dinner in record time (let’s stick our hand in the freezer and see what comes out!). After, you are even more productive, doing some cleaning interspersed with phone calls, more to-do lists, more emails, homework, etc. You crash on the couch to watch some TV and then lights off at 11.

Everyone has a different life and different obligations of course, but there seems to be a standard, frenzied pace that is threaded throughout our culture – a collective frequency, so to speak. After all, we have to get stuff done.

Most of you reading this are Every-Minute-Of-The-Day-Barely-Stopping-To-Breathe-Busy.

The Fast Superhero
We have nurtured a mindset of speed to support our hunger for progress and achievement, for higher salaries, for excitement, and for giving back.  We live in a land where the celebrated superheroes are fast and all-doing.

Don’t get me wrong. Fast is what gives us many innovations. It gives us global communication. It gives us that coveted convenience. But remember that in every superhero comic strip, there is the villain we must acknowledge. This is the cartoon character with the crazy, spiky purple or green hair we love to associate with awful.

The Villain
The villain in the proverbial comic strip of our culture dons many sneaky guises. It could be poor health and nutrition, record levels of stress, suffering relationships, stimulation overload, and simple loss of pleasure or feeling of contentment. While a sense of accomplishment is addictive, and while ‘fast’ is exhilarating (envision cape flapping nobly in the wind here), sometimes we just don’t know what’s bad for us.

I personally fight this bad guy (the ‘villain’) constantly, and I think my experience is quite common for women in general. When I run around like a multitasking miracle, I feel like an incredibly dazzling human being. And yet, truth be told, I also get completely stressed out and wholly irritable with my family. I end up with that gnawing feeling that I missed out on something good in the process.

We have a very competitive relationship with time…we’re constantly out to beat the clock using our special powers. Unfortunately, we never can conquer time; it will keep rolling no matter what. And by constantly running, constantly doing without questioning, we risk sitting up one day and asking ourselves “what was the point of all that craziness? Have I really been living?”.

Taking Time Is The Ultimate Rush
Ironically, taking time is the ultimate rush. The slow movement is gaining a foothold out there, and it’s labeled as such because we as a culture need it! Google it for a moment, and you’ll immediately see references to slow food, slow living, slow design, slow parenting, slow money – the list goes on. At the end of the day (read ‘life’), what truly and really matters?  I believe that what truly matters is that half hour you sit on that deck chair, just thinking or reading.  It’s taking a moment to watch a bird prance around in the bird bath. It is that conversation you have with a friend about their new job or the tickle-fest you give your child or nephew. It’s heading to the supermarket specifically to buy fresh ingredients for one special recipe. It’s putting your phone down and actually conversing with the bank teller.

I’m not trying to suggest a fantasy world here. You have work to do and family and friend obligations. Slow is not about replacing your current life and moving to the mountains of Peru (unless you want to, of course). It is about recognizing the importance of making small changes or additions to your life that create more meaning in your moments. Taking time is a mindset.

The new Superhero is Slow and she is the only character that can crush the villain.  I hope you will join me here as I explore the delights of slow; together we can create a new kind of superheroine (without losing the flashing cape, of course).

By Carolyn Parks

Carolyn Parks is Publisher of www.slowstruck.com, a lifestyle site promoting the idea that taking time is the ultimate rush. Engaging posts by over 20 contributors… take their weekly challenge and Get Your #Slowjo On.

Photo by Conrado | Shutterstock