May 21, 2023

One idea to keep it slow and simple… Take two steps back

Does it feel like the direction of life is always forward? Like the world insists on progress, growth, and endless betterment? Does it feel like, if we’re not setting and achieving bigger and better goals, that we’re not adulting right?

It seems like a lifetime ago now, but three short years ago, we got a glimpse of another path. Many of us had to stop, slow down, reverse course, take a step back, assess, and reassess. At first, the pandemic felt like a giant step backward, away from progress and speed.

And then it hit us. As the skies literally cleared, we got to know our neighbors and we took up bread-baking, birdwatching, and crafting. We started to think… maybe this wasn’t a step back after all. Maybe the moves we were making, the progress we thought we wanted, was really just speeding on autopilot.

The author Marilynne Robinson refers to “the spirit of the times” as “one of joyless urgency” saying “many of us are preparing ourselves and our children, to be means to inscrutable ends that are utterly not our own.”

Are there areas of your life that seem filled with “joyless urgency”? If you took two steps back today, what might you notice about the path you were on?

And some clickable fun

We love to discover and share, so we’ve added three cool clickables. And just so you know, when we list products, it’s just because we like them. We’re not sponsored by anything but our dreams and imaginations.

• You already know you can use coffee in cakes and cookies and put the grounds in your compost. But did you know you can even develop photos with coffee??

• After you take two steps back, what’s next? Learn how to slow down properly from the International Institute of Not Doing Much, then read their Slow Manifesto.

• Even the Earth’s inner core is on the slow trend these days.