The art of slow living

Over the past few years, the internet has been inundated with articles and websites dedicated to the art of slow living. Slow living is described as

“a lifestyle emphasizing slower approaches to everyday life”.

It is a way of life being adopted by many people as a counter-response to all the technology that surrounds us. I’ll be honest that I have grown so accustomed to clicking a few buttons and getting an answer, connecting with people without actually meeting them, looking at the 1000 best images of the Taj Mahal or the Great Barrier Reef or whatever, that I am starting to lose one important human trait: patience (and mine was already in short supply). If an app or a website takes a few milliseconds longer than usual to load, then frustration takes over almost immediately. It is quite frightening to what extent we are relying on technology of one type or another.

The ability to wait, the excitement that comes with anticipation, the capacity to try and try again, are being lost in favour of instant gratification. We want answers now. We must be constantly efficient. We surround ourselves with all sorts of gadgets and gizmos to make sure everything is done faster, and more faster still. Yet in spite of everything, we still never seem to have enough time. Although technology has made the world feel smaller and helped us connect more, the sad truth is that it is still a lonely place for many.

Admittedly, slow living is not for everyone. It requires a change not only in lifestyle but in an individual’s mind-set. Initially it will not be easy, but I am determined to give slow living a try, and winter is probably the best time to start some new habits.

My slow living goals:

• read more books – this one’s an easy fix.
• spend as little time as possible on social media sites like Facebook.
• turn off my mobile as soon as I get home – anybody that really wants to talk to me has my landline number.
• cook less food that comes in packages – this is one of the difficult ones for me because I am an indifferent cook and time for cooking meals is always limited.
• buy more food produced locally – again, this may not be as easy as it seems since our climate is what it is and not everything can be grown under the harsh Mediterranean sun.
• stop to smell, and appreciate the beauty of, flowers – whether they are cultivated or wild.
• sit by the sea more often – the sea is one of the loves of my life and living on an island should make this goal easy to achieve. It is also one of the most relaxing things to do in the world to just sit and hear the sea sigh and gurgle and roar, depending on its volatile mood.
• write letters and send postcards – I’ve written about the lost art of letter writing before. The trick is to find like-minded individuals to share notes and letters with.
• use the car less and walk more – I am already on track with this. Parking spaces in our town centres are  notoriously difficult to find so I often park and walk, getting several errands done in one run.
• take less pictures and learn to stop, think and compose them better – with digital photography we can take hundreds of mediocre photos because we know we don’t have to print them out. I find it doesn’t always help us develop our photography skills.
• put away the digital camera and pick up the analogue one. Some may find it hard to understand but nothing quite beats the anticipation of waiting for a roll of film to be printed. Trust me on this one.
• listen to a CD from beginning to end as opposed to flitting from one song to another on Spotify and YouTube.
• waste less, recycle more and get rid of anything that I don’t need.
• connect with real people, meet up with old friends and have a chat over a coffee.

It’s quite a list but it’s good to set myself some goals. Listing them here might actually help me make sure I stick to them.

A part of the slow living concept is the slow food movement that started in Italy in 1989 (why am I not surprised?) and my decision to do something about the chaotic lifestyle that we lead has been inspired by Naomi Bulger of the blog Naomi Loves, a passionate advocate of slow living; and a book I recently finished reading: An Italian Journey by James Ernest Shaw, in which the author writes with a great deal of fervour about the Tuscan way of life, about the many families that are once again farming the land using traditional methods, cooking with produce grown in the region or on neighbouring farms, and lingering over their meals.

Lingering. It almost sounds like an alien, if beautiful, word. When was the last time I have lingered over anything? I can’t remember. So I think it’s time. To linger. To breathe. To slow down a notch. To live, actually.

All images © Sincerely, Loree