Started as a quick LinkedIn post, turned into a deeper peek into my (sometimes chaotic) brain.
Slow down, have a read, let me know what you think?
If there's one thing I'm notorious for, it's eating slowly.
Whether it was in the hallowed dining halls of my British boarding school in 2004 or navigating bustling Mumbai corporate life in 2019, the story was always the same. I’d eat bite after glorious bite at my own, glacial pace, while everyone around me, well, shovelled.
And, depending on the politeness level of my co-eaters, I’d either be left to finish my cottage pie or palak khichdi alone… or you’d find me inhaling everything as quickly as possible while everyone around me pretended to be highly invested in the forced chit-chat simmering around the table.
(If I’m honest, I’d actually rather everyone got up and left so I could continue to eat in peace. This is why one of my favourite parts of solo travel is the solo eating part: it gives me a very valid excuse to sit in a restaurant for as long as I want, not a plate-starer in sight. At least, not one I care about.)
Okay, I digress.
The point is, I’ve always preferred a slower pace of life. I’ve always been someone who cherishes every moment, every meal, mindfully and slowly.
But, somehow, somewhere along the way, I got caught up in the rat races that are London, Beijing, Singapore, and forgot to savour life entirely, instead pushing myself to get more done in less time.
I’ve always ended up in environments, friend groups, cities that run on speed, speed, more speed. Society — or, at least, the societies I’ve found myself in across the world — are big on the fast life. Yes, you may argue, that’s what happens when you live in a city.
But here’s my argument: why can’t we embrace the slow life, no matter where we are? What daily emergency is making us wolf down our beautiful, buttery scrambled eggs every morning?
When I started working in management consulting, mornings used to be rush-rush-go. The faster I ate, the more productive I could be. (Or so I thought).
Of course, I was not alone. Jia Tolentino astutely summarises this lifestyle in Trick Mirror:
The ideal chopped-salad customer is himself efficient: he needs to eat his twelve-dollar salad in ten minutes because he needs the extra time to keep functioning within the job that allows him to afford a regular twelve-dollar salad in the first place.
Sound familiar? Well, without realising it at the time, I had been well and truly swept up in the chopped-salad life.
Optimising every opportunity. Pushing for productivity. Dashing off after a calm yoga class to quickly check all the notifications I'd missed in the last hour, quickly and thoughtlessly unravelling the meditative state I had just worked so hard to attain.
And on I went.
Until I couldn’t.
All this natak came to a grinding, screeching halt when the events of March 2020 pushed themselves into our lives, unannounced and unwanted. The events that forced us to finally slow down — because there was no other option.
For the first time in a long time (or perhaps ever), there was nowhere I had to be. Because, well, there was nowhere I could be. An introvert’s dream, perhaps, but definitely this Type A extrovert’s nightmare.
At the beginning, I continued on autopilot, creating and tolerating a mindless blur of ‘must-fill-my-calendar-with anything-I can-do-at-home’.
Eventually though, I finally slowed down. And guess what happened when I slowed down?
I discovered I was a writer.
You see, working long hours as a consultant meant I had left myself very little time to discover who I was, what I wanted to do, what I was good at. I was in desperate need of some ikigai-ing, if you will.
This is when I suddenly woke up to my reality: I had been hustling myself to misery, having forgotten what was important to me as a human. Not me as a daughter, not me as a sister, not me as a worker, not even me as a writer. (Well, back then, I didn’t even know I was a writer… because I didn’t take the time to slow down and notice it. See where I’m going with all this?)
So, I started to meaningfully introspect. Why was I running around randomly all the time? What was the hurry? Was it just to wear that arbitrary ‘I’m so busy’ badge of honour? Sure, badge me up — but it dawned on me that being busy did not equal being successful. Or happy.
Perhaps I was 'achieving' more, but, on reflection, I was ultimately burnt out, had barely spent any time with family, and had given up on staying in touch with friends — all in the name of ‘optimising’. I had become a shell. A shell waiting to discover that she was, in fact, a writer. Something that would only happen through quiet reflection in idle time.
So, as it turns out, slowing down actually accelerated my career trajectory and, in turn, changed my life.
There’s something else that this whole slow-down-and-smell-the-roses lifestyle has gifted me: gratitude. Gratitude for the time to smell said roses. Gratitude for the small pleasures. For the dolce far niente.
If you’re anything like me — that is, a self-pitying potato — you may struggle to recognise and appreciate all the good in your life. Turns out, if you only focus on the negatives, you won’t have much time left for the positive.
Enter the slow-down life. The life that I’ve been touting for the last 900 words.
Everyone reading this knows — well, on a theoretical level, anyway — that when we slow down and appreciate the smaller things, we enjoy life and are, almost automatically, more grateful. When we rush through life, it’s easy to get bogged down, to feel despondent at the end of the day.
I remember my first friend in India trying to show me the simple beauty of popping down for an impossibly refreshing nimbu paan in the middle of the workday. Another friend in Malaysia tried to introduce me to the foodie treasures that nestle themselves in the hawker centres of Johor Bahru. And on it went.
Alas, unfortunately for me (and my long-suffering friends), these efforts were all but lost on me. I was so focussed on ‘getting things done’ that I didn’t truly, intentionally focus on what I was experiencing outside of the hustle bubble. At the time, these were just distractions, motions to get through.
Of course, if I were to go back in time with my newfound life philosophy, I would have appreciated these moments for the stunning experiences they were.
And remember when I talked about how I strongly disliked my time living in Mumbai? Well, back in April of this year, I returned to visit friends in the city on what was supposed to be a three-day trip. But I ended up turning it into a three-week trip. How come?
Because I was enjoying the city! Because I was enjoying life! And this was despite staying in exactly the same apartment building, in exactly the same area that I used to live in when I was miserable with life there.
Yet, I was having a blast for one simple reason: I wasn’t in a hurry. I did things at my pace. I’d sleep 12 hours on a Friday night, with no (nonsense) worries about ‘waking up early and making the most of the weekend’. And then I’d go potter around Heera Panna or Bandstand or Colaba Market or absolutely wherever I wanted to, no itinerary or schedule in sight.
On weekdays, I’d let my morning coffee take its time. Yes, that would mean starting work fifteen minutes later than ‘planned’, but it was fifteen minutes. It was not the end of the world.
I took sunset breaks. Nariyal paani breaks. Reading breaks. Breaks for the sake of breaks.
I ended up thoroughly loving my time in Mumbai, simply because I was more grateful for my time there.
That’s all well and good, you might think, but can we address the elephant in the room, please and thank you?
What is this childless, commute-less woman harping on about, anyway?
I know, I know. Perhaps this all sounds privileged, ridiculous, idealistic, out-of-touch to people with ‘more’ responsibilities. I know that, pre-2020, I would scoff reading all of this.
Honestly, though, the hard truth is that we are all busy in our unique ways; one breed of busy is not more valid or important than another. They’re just different.
Yes, some of my friends are raising children, others are caring for ageing parents, yet others are striving towards that tricky career change… and me? Well, by now, it’s no secret that I support my brother’s education, and have to work hard to keep up with my responsibilities, to keep the money flowing. Every month, mere hours after it is credited, I watch the majority of my salary leave my account, off on its journey to make my brother’s life a better one. It is not easy.
With such a high-pressure commitment, the old me would definitely have given in to my old workaholic tendencies. But I have to remind myself that, while it may seem counterintuitive, I need to consciously make time for rest, so that I am better, for my family and my workplace — and, above all, for myself.
Of course, realistically, carving out significant downtime can't be possible every single day, every single week. Some phases will just be harder than others.
However. If not every single thing we deal with is urgent or highly important, I really don’t see why we sprint through life. Is it just because we don’t know any other way? Is it because we fear that opportunities, money, life will slip through our fingers if we don’t?
I won’t lie; I definitely still have that voice nagging at me sometimes. I shouldn’t take this long to eat lunch. I should probably make the most of this 10-minute gap between meetings. Should I wake up at 5AM tomorrow?
Now, today, any time I catch myself thinking this way, pushing to be more, better, faster, I apply equal force on myself to slow down, calm down — no matter how tempting it is to do more.
The next time you find yourself wolfing down that chopped salad to help you have a more 'productive' day, think about what that word actually means to you.
Does it mean more achieved, so that even more can be achieved? Does it ever end?
Or does it mean just getting what you realistically can and need to get done in one day, and then spending the rest of the time doing that which brings you joy?
Will the world really come crashing down if we choose to add an extra 30 minutes to our lunch break, or to take a quick nap afterwards? Can we make more space to actually live life, and not just exist?
I don’t deny it is, undoubtedly, very difficult to chill out. But it is also very necessary.
So, today, I propose you slow down.
Because it’s in the crevices of the quiet that you may just find what you’re looking for.
Or who you really are.
Until next time,
S
Tell me: Are you Team Hustle or Team Slow the F Down? (There are no wrong answers!)
Cover image captured somewhere in rural Maharashtra, India. <3