In today’s world everyone and everything seems to be moving at rapid speed. And the older I get, time seems to fly by a lot faster too. But lately, I’ve been getting the urge to go slow.

Remember, when how summers seemed to last forever when we were little girls?

And summer days were long too as we played hide and seek with our friends, visited relatives out-of-town, and licked the ice cream dripping down our hands.

We believed we had all the time in the world.

I haven’t felt that way in a long time.

Have you?

As time flies, and we try to keep up, we lose track of significant events, fail to experience the moment fully, and unfortunately, exhaust ourselves.

Our world is speeding up and we’re suffering.

Blame it on technology, the accessibility of information, the weather, or our perceptions. Whatever or whoever is to blame, time is not stopping for anyone.

And unfortunately we can’t stop the world and get off, but we can, thank God, unplug from it if we need to.

There are times when I just can’t and don’t want to move quickly. And I’m learning how to slow down my pace a bit. Here’s why.

I don’t want the relentless, rapid motion of this race convince me that I’m not fit enough to be a part of it in the first place.

Some of us may beg to differ with this line of thought when it comes to making our ideas blossom. Our lexical semantics include words/phrases like momentum, leverage, carpe diem, or timing is everything.

This type of language, I suspect, contributes to our desire to want to keep pace with the world and others who are making things happen in rapid fire succession.

But when it comes to making some of ideas my ideas blossom, I can’t go that fast. I have to process and take time to make sense of them. Ask questions, break my them apart and reconstruct them. I might even take my time making an idea blossom because I want to savor the process.  By going slow, I understand I might miss an opportunity, but maybe that opportunity wasn’t for me anyway.

And on a more personal note, when I’m tired, I shut down. And if I see something beautiful, especially in my urban/suburban environment, I pay attention to it. I recently captured a few moments of beauty in my world because I slowed it down.

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What about you? Do you feel compelled to keep pace with the world or others? And if you find yourself trying to keep pace, do you need to slow it down? How do you plan to slow it down? Take a moment to reflect on these questions in your journal this week.

If you haven’t a clue how to slow it down, here are a few suggestions I’d like to offer you:

• Sit in a sauna, hot spring, or steam room for 30 minutes.

• Practice a few yoga poses in your backyard.

• Reserve a hotel room for an overnight stay to meditate.

• Picnic at a botanical garden or community park.

• Take a walk in your neighborhood and take pictures of the beauty that stands out.

• Go for an early morning walk with your spouse.

• Cook a recipe you found on Pintrest with your sister-friend.

• Read a book for 1 hour on your back porch.
• Unplug from social media for an entire weekend.

If any of these suggestions seem too far-fetched for you, do something a little more simple. Make time during your hectic day to breathe deeply and slowly for 10 seconds, at least 3 times.

You see, we need this moments to recharge because when we’re making our ideas blossom (and for some of us, working that 9-5 too) we’re constantly clicking, thinking, talking, driving, moving, surfing the web, and doing just about everything real fast, all the time so that we keep pace.

And girl, if you decide not to move so quickly, be encouraged that any movement you’re making is a good thing, even if it’s a little slow.

Leave your comments below or on the GoneGirlGo Facebook page. You can even email me at zoe@gonegirlgo.com for a more personal exchange.