(TL;DR: slow down, and smell the roses.) just went for a 5km run around my estate. typically i run at night, so this was the first time in a while that ive run in the day. gotta say, it makes a big difference. the ground was a little damp, so it probably rained in the wee hours of the night. that sliver of water made the sunlight glisten off the footpaths, grass patches, and fallen leaves as i set off from my home, almost paving a glittering running track through the cool morning breeze. the scene was simple yet beautiful. so why didnt i properly savour it before? it caused me to ponder how we take the amazing things in our lives for granted in our self-constructed state of busyness. ive walked along the same footpaths almost everyday rushing to the bus stop / train station to head off to somewhere supposedly important, without taking the time to appreciate what was already around me. its ironic how i learnt to slow down only while i was running, and kept rushing as i was walking. truth is, its all to do with our state of mind. we need to calm ourselves and investigate our minds - remaining aware of every moment of our daily lives, being fully conscious of what we are doing and why and how we are doing it. i read the article linked below about busyness before starting off on my run. how apt this particular passage was, especially to those of us in the working world: Staffan Linder, a Swedish economist, diagnosed this problem in 1970. Like Becker, he saw that heady increases in the productivity of work-time compelled people to maximise the utility of their leisure time. The most direct way to do this would be for people to consume more goods within a given unit of time. To indulge in such “simultaneous consumption”, he wrote, a chap “may find himself drinking Brazilian coffee, smoking a Dutch cigar, sipping a French cognac, reading the New York Times, listening to a Brandenburg Concerto and entertaining his Swedish wife—all at the same time, with varying degrees of success.” Leisure time would inevitably feel less leisurely, he surmised, particularly for those who seemed best placed to enjoy it all. The unexpected product of economic progress, according to Linder, was a “harried leisure class”. let us not become victims of our self-perceived time poverty. stop running, and start living.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 03:01:14 +0000
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