I
'm trying to take it slow these days. I have a pretty active mind, and when it gets stuck on something, I'm going a million miles a minute internally. This usually translates into something of a harried, slapdash approach to my outer life, when I'm not paying attention, rushing through things, being forced to re-do what I've just done, and piling little stress on little stress. I like the feeling of thinking about things that I want to think about, but I do not like the feeling of my life being just out of my grasp, of the building anxiety of having rushed.
Right now, I'm working on renovating my mom's bathroom. I made a large mistake early on, that resulted in basically having to re-do a day's worth of work. Since then, I've decided to Take It Slow -- take longer than I think I should, make sure I'm doing things correctly, double checking, and all those et ceteras. I've also started a weight lifting routine, and decided that I'm not going to push myself to get to the highest weight I can as quickly as I can -- I'm starting easy, and increasing weight slowly, to make sure I get my form down and don't hurt myself. And, I've taken to driving 55 miles per hour on the interstate, in order to save on fuel economy, and also to get out of the mindset that I have to get where I'm going as fast as humanly possible.
What interests me about these cases of slowing down is that I arrived at each of them independently. I didn't think "I should start taking things slower in my life", and then apply this principle in a variety of ways (at least not consciously). Rather, at least three different times, I came to the conclusion that going slower was going to be better for me. I only realized their connection literally as I sat down to write this post.
I'm glad that this attitude is arising naturally in me. That feels like a habit earned, something that might one day even blossom into a virtue. It's easy to overlook the value of taking it slow; it's somewhat countercultural these days. I say embrace it -- build a little friction into your life, it'll keep you warm.