QUOTE:
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
-Abraham Lincoln
Good Morning!
We have sped up our living and we are working in a fast-paced, interruption-driven culture. So have we stopped to ask, is it helping or hurting to be driven to speed by technology, mass media and the cultural norm?
Theorists and philosophers warned us at the beginning of the technological age that if we didn’t control technology, it would control us.
Reagan Bach shares:
“Going slow means investing in the things that matter long term and that take time to develop, so that we can move quickly and become successful over the long haul.”
We CAN slow down. We don’t have to allow the technological age to push us into high speed and drive us to distraction. Geir Berthelsen founded The World Institute of Slowness, as a Think Tank in 1999.
In Carl Honoré’s 2004 book, In Praise of Slow, he describes the slow movement:
“It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting.”
While Live Vibrantly focuses on everyone in all walks of life, let’s look at how you focus your work:
For those of you in business, it is important to remember some things Regan Bach teaches:
- “Growth isn’t all that matters.” (Financial gain isn’t all that matters.)
- “Strategy matters”
- “People matter”
- “Culture matters”
- “Longevity matters”
“These are the aspects of business that suffer and ultimately fall apart at the seams when companies focus exclusively on moving fast. Many companies aim to gain market traction first, and then deal with everything else (culture, communication, HR, etc…) once they get there. That’s like attempting to summit Everest first, and then dealing with setting up base camps after the fact.”
TIP:
How about pausing today and asking yourself what you can do to slow life down?
Here are some resources for you:
In Praise of Slow – Carl Honore
https://www.carlhonore.com
The World Institute Of Slowness
https://www.theworldinstituteofslowness.com