Do you find yourself in situations where your mind is racing so fast, you need to actually tell yourself to SLOW DOWN?
Sitting on the bus (fairly annoyed and calming down after waiting 30 minutes longer than scheduled), I was watching so many late commuters busily reading or typing on their smartphones. And then TMOT happened. The Moment of Truth, where it occurred to me right then, being exhausted after a long day at work, that I desperately needed to give myself permission to shut down all technology. To turn off those interactive devices that keep our minds on over drive. Have you ever really consciously decided not to read your email or check your smart phone for text/voice mail before you go to bed, knowing that the last time it happened, the messages triggered some uncontrollable emotion (like excitement, anger or fear) and you were suddenly wide awake at 3:00 a.m. thinking about it?
Well, I have. And you also know from previously blogs, I also haven’t. As a result, with little to no sleep, I would wake up with a foggy head, needing copious amounts of caffeine before being able to deal with my day (and the crisis or situation at hand) with patience and calm.
I was getting my usual latte at a cafe near my work and the very tall, striking and YOUNG barista was telling me how her mind wouldn’t shut down the night before. She barely slept 3 hours. I wanted to say – I know what you mean! Turn it off! Turn it off! (Of course I was assuming that technology was the culprit). But without really knowing whether I was wrong or right, I didn’t want to presume I had the answer. I just nodded and said, “Yeah, I know what you mean”.
And then a co-worker sent me an email. This article in the NYTimes, to me, says it all. It was his (the author’s) TMOT, too.
Excerpt:
The urgency of slowing down — to find the time and space to think — is nothing new, of course, and wiser souls have always reminded us that the more attention we pay to the moment, the less time and energy we have to place it in some larger context. “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries,” the French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in the 17th century, “and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.” He also famously remarked that all of man’s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
When telegraphs and trains brought in the idea that convenience was more important than content — and speedier means could make up for unimproved ends — Henry David Thoreau reminded us that “the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages.” Even half a century ago, Marshall McLuhan, who came closer than most to seeing what was coming, warned, “When things come at you very fast, naturally you lose touch with yourself.” Thomas Merton struck a chord with millions, by not just noting that “Man was made for the highest activity, which is, in fact, his rest,” but by also acting on it, and stepping out of the rat race and into a Cistercian cloister.
Pico Iyer is the author. A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 1, 2012, on page SR1 of the New York edition with the headline: The Joy of Quiet.
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