Slowing Down

      I can’t be the only one scared of the future. Almost everything about it seems gloomy: the “rat race” of working 9-5 every weekday until you’re dead, slavery to routine with only a few precious hours to spend with loved ones; the burden of managing deadlines, taxes, credit scores, retirement accounts, and food in the refrigerator as well as maintaining healthy personal and working relationships; the ever-increasing risk of depression and anxiety; the frightening cancer rates, divorce rates, obesity rates, suicide rates; the seeming meaninglessness of everything you work towards; rapidly fading biodiversity; the eventual shortages of breathable air, livable space, drinkable water; the increasingly polarized political environment; potential war and nuclear fallout; the list goes on forever. 

     The solution we’re given is, as the cliché saying goes, to “stop and smell the roses”; to slow down and learn to enjoy the small moments of peace and contentment we feel in our lives. But is this only a temporary fix to a much larger, darker problem revolving around the increased materialism and lack of passion and soul with which we live our lives? Or is personal happiness merely an obstacle on the path towards higher standards of living, towards sustainability and security? Maybe we’ll never know, but in my book it’s worth pursuing anyway. The only happiness you can truly guarantee is your own, not anybody else’s.

     On the idea of slowing down, a lot of media suggests that the happiest, most fulfilling lives to lead are the slowest and the simplest. Siddhartha finally attains enlightenment and internal peace while living as a ferryman who does nothing more than help others across a river. The characters in The Grapes of Wrath were most content as sharecropping farmers in Oklahoma, where work was grueling but simple and rewarding, the people were tough yet honorable and compassionate, and each family lived independently yet cooperatively. The entire plot of the first Cars movie was about Lightning McQueen in learning to hit the brakes on his speed-crazed life and learn what a simple way of life, like that of the residents of the charming southwest desert town of Radiator Springs, has to offer. These paths were slow-paced and deeply connected with nature, and as a result are quickly dying in the modern world. 

     No matter what life I choose to live, whether I end up a high-powered member of the corporate world or a fisherman in a small hut on the shore of some great ocean, every step on the way I’ll be asking, “Will this make me happy?”. The road could be long and hard, and I hope I’ll learn the strength and courage to be willing to change paths if I find myself straying farther from contentment even if it costs me everything.