Dear friends,
When did you last slow down?
Really slow down.
When did you last stop?
Really stop.
Eddie Cantor tells us,
Slow down and enjoy life.
It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast,
You also miss the sense of where you are going and why.
Welcome to this meditation on slowing down and stopping.
We live in an increasingly frenetic world,
A world where we seem to be addicted to ever faster speed.
If we stop to observe the motions of nature,
We see that the world itself moves at a steady pace.
The moon around the earth every four weeks,
The earth completing its 940 million kilometer,
584 million mile journey around the Sun every year.
The turning of the planet itself.
We have no awareness of this movement because it is so steady.
If the earth were to suddenly spin more quickly,
We would be momentarily swept off our feet.
But we need have no fear of that because the world of nature is almost always a case of steady as she goes.
It is possible one minute,
60 seconds to notice and be grateful for the things around us that are moving at a consistent rate.
Welcome back.
But in our human world,
It's a different matter.
Here we see quicker results,
Faster trains,
Bigger planes,
Instant cures,
Instant pain relief,
Instant coffee,
Ready-made meals.
A photo of a cup of coffee to go could be a logo for our world,
With fast food munched mindlessly on the go as we rush along in conversation on our mobile devices.
And of course,
Just as soon as or even before we are reasonably familiar with our new device,
A newer,
Better version is promoted in our world which is engaged in a frenzy of built-in obsolescence.
In this fast-paced environment,
Even our attention spans are falling.
I heard it reported that program makers have to increase the speed of scene and camera changes because otherwise we lose interest in a program.
There's a feeling that unless we move at speed,
We are not keeping up.
We are not being efficient.
Which one of us feels comfortable admitting that he or she is not busy?
Aren't we all meant to be run off our feet?
Isn't that what justifies our existence?
There is no need to speed up the recorded images of a busy railway or underground station.
Recording life as we live it is seen to be fast enough.
Too fast indeed,
Even if played back at the original speed.
A quote from an author unknown.
Please slow me down.
I'm rushing here and there.
Rushing down my meals,
Dashing everywhere.
Cueing in the post office,
I cannot wait in line,
Trotting out again to come another time.
Shift me to a lower gear and give me time to chat.
To see a baby in a pram or a dog that needs a pat.
Help me to look upward and admire the towering trees.
Remind me there is more to life than all this foolish speed.
Help me to admire the hills and the eternal streams.
Let me in my hours of sleep appreciate my dreams.
Let's have another 60 second pause to recall the speed at which we do things these days.
Welcome back.
This exhortation to slow down is one which I have to offer to myself as well as to people who are listening to this.
When I first started uploading meditations to Inside Timer,
Many people helpfully reminded me that I needed to slow down my speed of speaking.
That pace was something of which I was totally unaware.
Even now and so many meditations later there is the occasional note.
I wish he had spoken more slowly.
Once I recall someone commenting he urges us to slow down but he speaks so fast.
This is something that I have to continually remind myself about when speaking in public aided by a note at the top of each page slow down.
The problem I think is that some of us have the tendency to speak as quickly as we read and that pace is not at all helpful in our efforts to communicate and of course if we are anxious we tend to speak more quickly.
But we have to remember that by speaking too fast we are not communicating as clearly as we would wish and we are adding to the general feeling of urgency giving the impression that there isn't enough time.
A feeling most people seem to have already in abundance.
You will know that it's recommended that when speaking to someone who is speaking loudly it will help to quieten the conversation if you talk back in a whisper.
So in this next pause for reflection let's consider our own speaking pace.
Think about how by slowing down our speed of speech we might bring a sense of calm to the people around us.
A one minute pause for this.
Welcome back again.
So in the days ahead let us see if we can go more slowly and more mindfully about our lives.
We might find that time moves more slowly if we ourselves slow down.
We all feel that every year that passes is faster than the one that went before and there are many theories as to why this might appear to be so.
One is that any year just passed is a greater percentage of the life of a young person.
A year to a child of seven is one seventh of the child's entire life whereas a year in the life of a 70 year old is only one seventh of what has gone before so for an older person a year appears to fly by more quickly.
Another possibility is that we have the impression of life speeding up because we speed through our own days.
We lose the sense of calm progress.
We forget to follow the example of nature and the same steady she calls.
So let's see in the days and weeks ahead if we can make the present moment last longer by slowing down the things we say and do.
Let's end our meditation with this well-known reflection from Wilfred A.
Peterson.
Slow me down Lord.
Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind.
Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal march of time.
Give me amid the confusion of the day the calmness of the eternal hills.
Break the tension of my nerves and muscles with the soothing music of the singing streams that live in my memory.
Help me to know the magical restoring power of sleep.
Teach me the art of taking minute vacations,
Of slowing down to look at a flower,
To chat with a friend,
To pat a dog,
To read a few lines of a good book.
Slow me down Lord and inspire me to send my roots deep into the soil of life's enduring values so that I may grow toward the stars of my great destiny.
Namaste.
