Tortoise Your Hare

Life Design Action: Tortoise Your Hare

Requires: Slowing, going down a gear, breathing and observing how you do your thing

Does not require: Marathons or fables

We live in a world of FAST. Fast food, fast living, fast driving, fast results; multi tasking, multi texting and instant gratification. The crazy thing is that in a world where a letter has become an email that can be sent to Timbuktu in the space of three seconds, the quantity of what we do has shot up in a hurry but what about the quality? What about the soft, gentle, savouring and relishing of goodness, life and quality?

In Europe there is an anti-Hare pro-Tortoise revolution taking place.

Its called the Slow Movement.

“A cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting.” (That’s what it says on Wiki).

The Slow Movement

Apparently movement began when a guy called Carlos Petrini protested (in Italy) about the opening of a McDonalds in Piazza di Spagna, Rome in 1986. This sparked off the Slow Food movement that then turned into the Slow Movement. Since then the movement has spread across Europe and has shown some amazing results. In France people work 35 hour weeks and yet as far more productive than the English or Americans. In Germany they have established a 28.8 hour week and productivity has gone up by 20%. Essentially, by slowing down and becoming more Tortoise than Hare, it would appear we can do what we do with better quality, attention to detail and less stress.

Are there any areas of your life that would benefit from slowing down?

There is one area in my life that I could do with speeding up – and that is the onset of my boy being born. His due date was yesterday and still I am waiting for the little tortoise snail to make a move …

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