On Slow Living with Mindfulness

The "slow living" movement started in the 1980s in Italy as a counter-reaction to the "fast life," and specifically to that uniquely American contribution to global cuisine: fast food. Although the focus still seems to be on food, the slow living movement has grown to encompass other areas of life, and it dovetails nicely with the practice of mindfulness, and specifically the mindfulness-based stress reduction developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Slow living is better than no living!

Slow living is a much-needed antidote to America's overemphasis of efficiency and productivity

Slow living is a much needed antidote to America's wild worship of efficiency and productivity. When we speak of a person's "net worth," we assess it in terms of dollars, instead of relationships and experiences. We look at multi-millionaire hedge-fund managers as examples of great success in Life, without stopping to ask whether they are on speaking terms with their children, or whether anything else in Life really matters when it's all said and done. We emphasize quantity over quality, and maybe because the quality is so poor, we feel like we're not really missing out on much when we do life at 100 miles per hour, with a lifetime of potential memories whizzing by too quickly to be savored. Slow living is a reminder that there is more to Life than business and making money, and we should question our assumptions about what counts as success in Life.

For many Americans (as well as for the British, the Japanese, etc.), each passing day means another deadline is drawing dreadfully closer. The typical worker is expected to get more done, in far less time, and for less pay (adjusted for inflation) than workers a generation ago. In most families, both parents are working full-time -- and even overtime -- out of necessity, leaving less time for housework and caring for children. Every day, the to-do list seems to get longer, and it can seem like the only way to catch up is to cram even more activities into our already overstuffed schedules. Even though studies have repeatedly shown that multitasking is a myth, we feel like we can't afford to take the time to do one thing at a time, so that we can do it mindfully and meaningfully.

The reality is that our culture is sick. We obsess so much over time, that the difference of a few minutes, or even a few seconds, can cause us to lose our tempers if we are running behind schedule. In all our haste, we miss out on Life's simple joys and pleasures. We defer our enjoyment for a tomorrow that may never come, and when we look back at the past, we see that despite all our frantic hustle and bustle, we never really arrived anywhere.

As Shakespeare put it in Macbeth, "Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour on stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing." If it was true in Shakepeare's day, it is all the more true in ours.

As a much-needed antidote to this American madness, Italy has given us the "slow living movement." This overlaps nicely with some of the concepts and insights, such as mindfulness, that American thinkers have imported from Asia's Buddhist cultures over the past few decades. Similarly, modern readers are beginning to rediscover the wisdom of ancient Greeks, such as the Stoics, Skeptics, and Epicureans, who advocated ataraxia, or freedom from worry and distress, as one of the highest goods in Life.

Slow eating...

I remember meeting some exchange students from the former Yugoslav republic, and I was intrigued by their response when I asked, "What would you say has been the biggest culture shock for you, when you think about the way Americans do things, versus the way things are done in your country?" They chuckled, thought for a minute, and then one of them replied, "The way Americans eat food."

I asked what he meant by that, and he said, "At home, a meal is a big event. We stop what we're doing, and everyone comes together to eat together and visit. It is a big social event for the day." He then added that the quality and freshness of the food was also much better and that people took the time to enjoy eating it. He contrasted this with American's attitude towards meals: we often eat alone, on the go, as quickly as possible, with our minds elsewhere, etc.

If we want to live more fully, a good place to start is with our meals. From the way meals are done in much of the world, I get the sense that fellowship and food go naturally together. There's something about eating food with family and friends that really does make the meal much better.

Also, if we eat more slowly and mindfully, we tend to eat less, but to enjoy what we eat much more. I have been as guilty as anyone of chowing down on a meal without really tasting the food or enjoying the experience. Then, I'm staring at an empty plate and feeling full, but dissatisfied. I may eat more than I should, not because I'm hungry, but because I feel like I will somehow enjoy my food if I eat more of it. But I don't. However, when I remember to take the time to savor each bite, to chew it slowly and really experience the flavors and textures of the food, I enjoy my food more and feel more content when my meal is done, and I'm less likely to overeat.

Of course, there's no reason to stop with reforming our approach to food. Slow living, in conjunction with mindfulness, is an approach to Life that brings great benefit in almost every area: relationships, aesthetic enjoyment, hobbies, and even our work. Since "multi-tasking" leads to distractedness and mistakes, we can often get more done, in the long run, by taking our time than by rushing things.

Video on Slow Living

[Embedded video from TED channel on YouTube: Carl Honore, "In Praise of Slowness."] 

Video on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

[Video embedded from Google's own channel on YouTube: Jon Kabat-Zinn leads Mindfulness Session at Google]

The choice between slow living and not living

When it's all said and done, the choice is not between slow living and fast living; the choice is between slow living and not really living at all.

Life is too short to burn our candles at both ends! And no amount of money can buy back the experiences we miss, if we race frantically through our days. I have wasted too much of my life already, chasing an illusory carrot or fleeing from an illusory stick.

The carrot is the promise of some future payoff: graduation, getting a "real job," getting married, having a family, getting the kids out of diapers, getting the kids through school, retirement, etc. Every time I crossed one finish line, I realize that the race was really far from over; in fact, it was really just getting started. The stakes were now even higher than before, since the next "finish line" was even more critical. So without being able to really enjoy reaching the last milestone, I found myself racing mindlessly towards the next finish line.

The stick consists of any of those imagined catastrophes that has ever kept me up at night: all the what-ifs that will become nightmarishly real if I don't keep running the rat-race with all my might and cunning. What if I don't get a scholarship? What if I get a bad score on this standardized test? What if I can't find a job? What if the car breaks down? What if, what if, what if?

And then there's the desire for distraction and staying busy, which can really come from a fear that my life is ultimately "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." (I think this is what lies at the root of "boredom.") If I stay busy enough and preoccupied enough, I won't have to consider that. I won't have to look into the empty vastness of what looks to be an existential vacuum. I won't have to face my responsibility to choose what my life will be or what it will mean.

But if I lose my life through chasing the carrot of some imagined future payoff, or in running away from some faceless anxiety, or in trying to paper over the biggest fear of all, that my life is ultimately meaningless, then my worst fear will be realized: my life will have been meaningless. As Jesus said, "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose his soul?"

So I am going to be intentional about taking a more leisurely pace through Life. In addition to practicing mindfulness while I'm meditating, I will strive to practice mindfulness while walking, talking, eating, and working. After all, slow living is better than no living!

See also, slow living article on Wikipedia; WebMD article on why multi-tasking is a myth; and UMass biography of Jon Kabat-Zinn, founding executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Healthcare, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (with links to various mindfulness resources). Also, check out Welcome to Finding Meaning in Life for more about this blog and other posts about topics like "happiness" and "meaning."