#339: What If I Slowed?

NEW lead-in from Veta Bates:

Jaime’s piece on slowing reminded me of a notion tangential to “time is money” that I’m actively developing a practice around with my new team – “rushing is costly.” In the midst of assessing an under-resourced/over-budget moment through the lens of owning our parts in the matter, I provoked that, in fact, no person had more fault in the situation than rushing did. I know, viscerally, when moving quickly, speeding, racing, flowing, and when I am rushing—when my pace is driven by real or (perhaps more often) perceived urgency, worry, insecurity, loss of power, money or opportunity, even sometimes by avoidance of humbling conversations about what is and isn’t humanly possible. Though there is absolutely a time and place for speed, I’ve seen innumerable times that when the pace of work, ideas, output, is driven by fear, scarcity and sheer human will, and the goal is speed, the net result will be a loss, in more ways than money. Alternatively, when I set my sites deliberately, even rebelliously, on creating and preserving the conditions that enable flow in an entropic world, an immensely satisfying, generative dance ensues, with compelling swells of acceleration and deceleration that serve up excellence and enrichment for all. I love the questions Jaime asks and how they can fold into a practice of elevated awareness around how and when pace is impacting one's capacity to enrich the tasks at hand.

- Veta

What If I Slowed?

It's easy to feel obsessed with convenience and quickness. 

Doing things faster. More efficient. 

There's a desire for the quick high of the left lane

We grow the “most food for the most people”. 

And I know I can buy anything from anywhere and have it tomorrow. 

But what if going slow was sexy? 

Full of feeling beneath my fingertips and oneness with others on the road instead of me-ness. 

What if when I drove by them I smiled? 

Eased on the gas to notice the deep blueness of the sky. 

Or to wonder about the life once lived of the raccoon corpse roadside. 

Was it, once, worthy of our thoughts? 

What if the tomatoes on the counters told stories of happy farmers healing souls and soil with their work?

What if I felt deeply, finally, how much that matters? 

What if slicing them for my salads sent sweet memories of making sauce with our ancestors? A quick moment with my late father. ..

What if my salt shakers were ceramics shaped by careful hands creating out of the solemn need to save their own life? 

And so when I dust my food I am too saying “I see you” and that keeps them here.

If my earrings made by friends helped build our community through conversations I might not have had otherwise? Conversations that call me back to who I really am and why I'm here. 

What if I fell more in love with thoughtfulness and paying attention and moving at a pace that made sense to my soul? 

What if I try to practice this more?

What could be the possibilities?