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. Comments can be made below.