We didn’t really need the virus to slam its huge sinister foot on the world’s brake pedal, making the world skid and slide to a slower pace, to know that most of its inhabitants were travelling way too fast. And that many of them are exhausted and maxed out.
Our self-perpetuated rat race has gnawed deep into our conditioned psyches for way too long. A world where the concept of success is tied to illusions of busyness. It’s not just that we are busy, but that we believe we need to be busy.
Sure, hippies, new-age devotees, golfing retirees, middle-class sea-changers, boutique farmers and digital-nomad hipsters have, over the last few decades, tried to escape the fast-lane seeking a more simple path in life.
But most of us haven’t really, until now maybe, been able to pause in the rest stop and check out the view. Even though we know the planet is choking under smoggy skies and drowning in its waste products, and even as we know the gaping chasm between rich and poor neighbourhoods all over the world keeps getting wider. We might even do our bit to reduce and recycle, find some balance in our lives and strive to serve. But the pace of our collective worlds didn’t really stop enough. Not really.
Unless, as individuals, we burnt out.
Unless we crashed.
For the first time in living memory (for most of us) the entire world is focused on the same thing. The sheer immensity and power of that awes me at times. Secretly I hope there’s some basement warrior types out there that might heroically spark transformative movements or inventions during this historical moment.
But even if nothing else, this global stayathome experience is giving much of the world a glimpse of what it’s like to just. slow. down. I think it might actually be a surprise to some of us now, while being forced to smell the beautiful and prickly rose of isolation, that this new pace of ‘slow’ can have a genuine rose-coloured tinge.
I’ve been blessed to have lived a slower, simpler life for a few years now. And on my tiny peanut island I’ve had the pleasure of creating a small space where others can momentarily slow down as well.
I came here because my nervous system had taken one too many reality slaps, I crashed, and I needed time out. I was also exhausted from nearly thirty years of adult life that was mostly too damn busy.
On this quiet little island I rented out a small bungalow to guests that came from around the world; and from the very get-go, I was astonished to witness a peculiar thing. I started to notice that many guests, after they’d finished their banana pancake, wouldn’t budge from their seat at our shared breakfast table.
I clearly remember my confused emotions when thinking ‘why is this person sitting here chatting with me?’ Why weren’t they going to the beach? Sure, most of them were from the northern hemisphere and might not have understood that you must get up early and hit the beach before the equatorial sun gets too high! But I still asked myself, given that many of them were half my age, why would they want to sit around and chat for hours with a broken-down old woman like me?
I didn’t know how to handle the situation. Because I lived onsite and I had no other place to sit, and because I was literally representing the benefits of a slow lifestyle, it wasn’t possible for me to escape politely (and get my much needed introverted down time)!
Breakfast time often rolled into lunch time. I swear they could hear my stomach rumble, but still they sat and chatted. Endless chatter.
I’m a slow learner at times – but eventually one day it dawned on me.
I realised that for many guests, this was the first time in ages that they could actually sit down and relax and not have to get moving. The first time in ages that they could just sit with their cuppa and shoot the breeze. No agenda. No looking at their watch. And on our back-to-basics island, not even the temptation of normal yolo holiday must-dos like going to see as many tourist hotspots as possible in one day, or following the fomo hoards on the latest instagram trail.
And then later, when we got more bungalows, it was fascinating to see that for MANY of our guests, sitting around our breakfast table was the first time they could just sit and really connect, not just small talk… drumroll… with strangers!
It became clear that there was nothing unusual in our guests coming from worlds where they spent hours commuting each day alone in their cars or on public transport with other ear-plugged strangers. Worlds where virtual face-to-face non work-related chats occurred only in snippets with colleagues and clients, and in spits and spurts with friends in noisy clubs on Friday nights. Where Saturdays were filled with shopping and running errands. And Sundays were often spent flaked out, exhausted, in front of the tv.
They were young people who’d spent the bulk of the days of their lives in an education system and a handful of years in the workforce, often in a career that they were already starting to reconsider. With a mere two to four weeks a year off. For many, the only times in their lives that they’d ever experienced the slow connections gained from sitting around a communal table, was maybe if they’d lived a year in a uni campus college, or if they’d been lucky enough to stay at hostels during a backpacking adventure.
You might be amazed at how many of our guests have confided in me that they were close to burning out, or even that they’d already had a breakdown.
And these were not people my age; most of them were only in their late twenties to mid-thirties.
People’s lives are just so damn hectic and stressful that their nervous systems were suffering; they had adrenal fatigue, chronic fatigue, gastro-intestinal problems, anxiety, depression, and so on. Many of them were rethinking their values and their life directions. In much the same way as many of us are doing now, or trying to do now, in this time of isolation.
How do we stop from being so busy? And how do we stop from raising our children to believe that they must be busy in order to succeed?
Many years ago I started to notice this addiction of our society to being busy. I termed it ‘the glorification of busy’. I looked the term up and yep, it’s a thing; many people have written articles and blogs about it.
I’m not sure when I first started to notice it. But maybe it was around the time of the GFC. I went from being completely run off my feet at work (as a mobile equine veterinarian), to suddenly having days where I shuffled files and wrote reports because I didn’t even get a single call out. People didn’t have as much money to spend on their horses.
It hit me that, when I stopped at a shop or the bank or the post office on the way home from the office, the cashier would greet me with a “Hey, how was your day, busy?”
Not G’day, how are you? Not even a bland reference to the weather like It’s hot today, isn’t it.
Instead, the increasingly common “Busy?” It would land heavily in my weary head, because for the first time in a long time, I hadn’t been busy that day.
I’d respond honestly and say, Um, no actually, it’s been quiet. The cashier or bank teller or postie would frown.
In the morning at the racehorse track, bright and early, my clients would sing out, “Hey Claudia how’s it been – busy?”
Not good morning. Not even a disinterested, how are you?
And I noticed that the standard responses everyone gave to these greetings, perpetuated the glorification.
“Oh I’m so busy you know… don’t know if I’m Arthur or Marthur!”
Or, “Yea, busy as, don’t know if I’m coming or going!” as they ran in circles throughout the day.
All said with pride, even if they mockingly rolled their eyes, they were clearly indicating that busy was an accomplishment. Is it the same in other countries? Even chats with friends were punctuated with messages of busyness, and scheduling get-togethers was a challenge.
“Yeah good, busy busy, gotta run!”
And, “Yea, flat out like a lizard drinking!” Trying to meet a deadline. Flat out and flat strap seem to be measures of admirable effort (not like this guy I pinched from the internet).
I learnt that if you didn’t respond like that, with a busy-busy attitude, people would assume something quite negative.
Because if we weren’t (complaining or boasting of) being busy, it must mean we were one of three things: lazy or slack, boring, or unsuccessful.
How refreshing it has been to live in Indonesia, where siestas are still admired and enjoyed, and where ‘slowly slowly’ is one of the most used and loved phrases.
When I was young and a vet came to our horses, we’d ask them in for a cup of tea. And I’m sure we didn’t judge them negatively for accepting that invitation!
When I became a vet I couldn’t afford the time to do that. Time was money and we charged in five minute increments. It just felt all wrong to work my butt off for 35 minutes, and charge for that 35 minutes, and then sit around with them for 30 minutes to chat. In any case I was hardly ever invited, because of course my clients were also running on the proverbial treadmill.
Plus my employer was tracking my movements. I mean literally, with a tracker in the vehicle. Crazy world, huh?
“Gotta run, late already for the next client,” I’d sing out as I ran to my car, even if it was a fib.
This is a serious societal problem that has bothered me for quite a long time. Both how ridiculously busy we are, and also how we’ve come to believe that we must be lazy or a failure if we are not.
I’m sure there must be correlation studies out there to show the strong association (causative?) between this glorified busyness and burnout syndrome.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that this little island I live on had a reputation for attracting people who seek quiet. There are no cars or highrises or malls or even beach clubs here. Some visitors came here for a quiet romantic honeymoon, some for a break from their adventuring and partying. Some came specifically for an entire holiday away from traffic and crowds.
I used to be the person who got cranky when people walked too slowly in front of me in shopping centres. What the hell’s wrong with them, I’d think! But now with my new take on life, I really loved seeing our guests, after a few days, literally walk slower than the day they arrived.
And quite a few guests came here to take an extended time out. A lengthy rest. Time away from the grindstone, so that they could ground, centre, balance and breathe. And recover. Quite a few of them had quit their jobs or their lives, or taken long sabbaticals; sold up and packed everything they owned into a backpack to travel slowly for nine months or more. Many of them were using that time to reconsider their career paths.
I found it a beautiful thing, to see younger people reevaluating their choices before they settled down to mortgages and parenthood. But there is something terribly wrong with the other side of that coin.
Is it perhaps possible that the global collective consciousness of our millions of frazzled nervous systems and exhausted minds contributed to building this world that was prone to such a pandemic?
Now, in this world of contagion, almost the entire world’s population has been sent into their separate corners to take time out. I won’t go into the tragic effect this is already having on millions of people not blessed to be living in ‘pandemically privileged’ societies or homes. And I won’t go into the concerns I have about the potential outcomes of the loneliness and separation and mental health and stress this time of isolation may cause.
This blog is about focusing on the rose-scented lesson. Our enforced time out is somewhat akin, potentially, to the beautiful epiphanies our lovely guests glimpsed during their time around our breakfast table while they were on this peanut island.
There’s many more poetic pieces than mine floating around social media espousing all this. About the planet healing already. About animals thriving. About a global consciousness of recovery. Of course it’s not so simple. But I hope they resonate, and I hope we can take the time where our slowed thoughts can not only ponder this, but allow them to transform us. Now is a time to appreciate some silver linings and internalise some of the benefits of slowing down!
When restrictions lift, can we go out less, buy less, donate more, rest more? Can we drive and walk and talk more slowly. Can we each actually take action to transform society? To take the pressure off kids (give them more free time, yay!), and create a society where we can all spend less hours at school and less hours at work. Can we create more thoughtful systems for our youth to develop their unique gifts and become part of the workforce in a purposeful, fulfilling and sustainable way?
We’ve learned how amazing Zoom is at supporting people that can work from home. And how platforms like that also enable us to stay connected and to give, in live time; free yoga classes and language lessons, games and community sing-alongs, all at a slower pace.
But still things are changing often. I wonder if by the time you read this, will you already be rushing back into your normal fast-life as governments start to ease restrictions?
I hope not; I hope life does change to become some sort of new normal, that we can remember our deep, intrinsic need for moments of being connected, in real space and time and touch, with our extended families and communities and also with ‘strangers’ we meet along the way.
When the brakes are released and we drive out the other side of this incredible opportunity, why don’t we make more communal tables where we can gather together after breakfast to take the time to ponder and share and discuss life.
