Slow down...at Work
Slow down at work for a slow life as part of the slow movement. Okay, this is a hard one for me. I love my work, but can I slow down at work? I’m in healthcare and I love helping people. So for me the idea of slowing down at work is a hard one. It’s easy for me to just work until I drop. Which is what I usually do by the weekend. Typically, by the end of the week, I’m so exhausted that I wish sometimes that I could just spend Saturday in bed to recover. Do I? Of course not. Instead, it’s cleaning, shopping, chores, etc. Once in a blue, blue moon, I do spend a Saturday morning reading in bed and it’s bliss - I feel like I'm part of the slow movement. Sheer bliss. Like the kind of bliss you had when you were a kid and spent all day outside playing without all the worries of the world on your shoulders. What's your bliss…remember? Could this be the beginning of the slow movement for you?
Anyway, back to slow down at work. I have been driving myself at work for years and thought everybody else did also but I was fascinated to hear that not everyone else in the world works as hard as we do in the U.S. In South Africa, the whole country takes vacation from 2-4 weeks over Christmas, another week or two at Easter and that’s in addition to their family vacations! In Paris, the Parisians leave the city in droves in August. That's a slow life and slow movement! Until a few years ago, I had never taken a vacation longer than a week. When I finally did, it was amazing to discover …myself again. The self I had before I turned into an overstressed workaholic, longing for the slow life. The self that used to laugh more, that used to play and have more fun, the self that was nicer, that wasn't always so tired. And I discovered that you don’t usually get those feelings back until the 2nd week of vacation….
Last year we took a month off to go to Italy. I’ll write more about that later on the Slow Travel page. Part of the time, we ran around sightseeing. Part of the time, we just lay around like lazy fools, enjoying the slow life. What do we remember as our favorite part of the trip? The lazy part.
Italy, by the way, is becoming a leader in the “Slow Movement.” They believe that by slowing down and savoring it, a slow life is a better life. They’ve even started a special day to promote slow living. February 19th is the official Day of Slowness in Italy. There's even a phrase for slow living; L'arte del Vivere con Lentezza, which means The Art of Living Slowly. Doesn't that sound lovely? Perhaps, we should have an official “Day of Slowness” here in San Diego. Let's try to Slow Down at Work first for a slow life as part of the slow movement.