Linda Dagher | Staff Writer

I purposefully ignore it. Dismiss it. Yet, knowing how exhausted I am, the alarm goes off again for the 4th time until I finally give in and rush through my morning routine, or at least what I can fit in the 15 minutes I have I have to spare. The days are crammed, the schedule overwhelming, and rest feels like a guilt trip that leaves me wearier every time. And to make everything feel just a little better, or so I think, I binge on anything from crackers to social media, and the cycle goes again.

Been there?

I know this routine described my life from not so long ago, that was until I sought to implement new rhythms of rest into my life. Turns out this new lifestyle is more practical, effective, and holistically more nurturing to our souls. And while it’s extremely tempting to want to find a silver bullet to achieve that life, our beings are far too complex for that. Change is much more complex. So, in this short article I won’t try to sell you a quick fix, but I sure hope to plant some seeds of curiosity towards a slower life that might someday, if nurtured, flourish into a fruitful land of simplicity, gratitude, and rest.

To describe our 21st century society as one living in chronic hurry would have never been anticipated by our preceding generations. Predictions of what life would be like in our society from their perspective barely falls into the ballpark of what we are living through today. One American Senate subcommittee in 1967 was told that by 1985, the average American would work only twenty-two hours a week for twenty-seven weeks a year… Everybody thought the main problem in the future would be too much leisure due to the enhancement of technology. Well, clearly that is not the case! What happened? Has our technology proven inefficient? Have our responsibilities exponentially grown? Or have we fallen for the trap of the glorification of “busyness” in our culture of distraction?

While with a more elaborate world come more responsibilities and tighter schedules, that alone cannot explain our frantic lifestyles of today. There are other components intricately wired into the fabric of our society causing us to wallow into our rabbit holes of hurry, a major one of them being our culture of distraction. Everything is designed to distract. Take it from Sean Parker, the first president of Facebook, who says: “The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, …was all about: “How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?” and then adds on how all internet platforms are so effective in distracting us “because [it is] exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”

A recent study found that the average iPhone user touches his or her phone 2,617 times a day. Each user is on his or her phone for two and a half hours over seventy-six sessions. And that’s for all smartphone users. Another study on us millennials put the number at twice that. Talk about a constant distraction, but more accurately a chaining addiction.

As Tony Schwartz said in his opinion piece for the New York Times: “Addiction is the relentless pull to a substance or an activity that becomes so compulsive it ultimately interferes with everyday life. By that definition, nearly everyone I know is addicted in some measure to the Internet.”

Everyone        

Before you misunderstand my intentions, I am by no means promoting the Bygone era, I am just highlighting the gravity of the relationships we have with our phones. The busyness and unnecessary hurry this relationship causes in our lives is drastic. So, the key to a more grounded, unhurried, and nurtured life is not more time. We will find ways to be distracted, nonetheless. The key is finding time for what really matters and prioritizing that. In Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits, he explains how imperative it is to create a schedule that aligns with one’s values/priorities. He indicates that without that, no one can achieve inner peace. Harsh … yet true.

So, create for yourself a fixed hour schedule. List down your priorities and allot for each one of them hours on your schedule and, within reason, stick to it. While it may seem like this is in many ways binding, especially for fellow not type A individuals, it is through discipline that one truly flourishes. Keeping up with our nurtured garden analogy, what is a vine without a binding trellis?

In addition to forming a schedule, creating pockets of silence and solitude throughout a day orients the individual and grounds them to focus on what it is they want to achieve. Solitude is not meant to isolate one from whatever lies in their day, it is meant to offer the time and space to reconnect with oneself and re-engage the world from a more focused perspective.

Furthermore, attempting to live a simpler life might be your next best decision. Greatly articulated by Alan Fadling, as he states, “The drive to possess is an engine for hurry.” He reminds us of one of the numerous drawbacks that consumerism has had on our culture. The constant drive for more has left us drained on every level. We have overloaded our schedules, missed out on the small joys of life, overworked our bodies and health just to keep up with all the things we are taught we “should have” to find joy in life. In that process, we have lost a lot of what it truly means to be joyful.

So, try a simpler life instead. Start with your closet, we don’t need 15 pairs of sneakers, we know that. Try a capsule wardrobe for a season. Break the system of consumerism so deeply rooted in our subconscious and try to explore the value of contentment, where unfulfilled desires don’t curb your happiness. Soon you will find that striving for the unessential “more” will be replaced with a joyful consciousness of the present, allowing you to enjoy the small pleasures and inviting you to invest in close relationships you would have otherwise disregarded in your hurried pursuit of “more”.

While the implementation of these new rhythms of rest and conscious presence may be costly, it will cost us way more to live without them. Life is too short to waste in a chronic hurry. Take some time this week to enjoy the beauties of what life has to offer, you’ll find them in spontaneous friendship dinners, on some meditative nature walk, or maybe even in some creativity that surfaces in absolute boredom, because that’s its fertile ground! Choose life this week.