BALANC SPIRIT A THEME FOR 2015: SLOW DOWN

WRITER: RICHARD BOSSHARDT, M.D., FACS

The new year is a time of reflection.

Many people use the milestone to map out a 12-month plan to achieve goals. Notice I did not say “resolutions.” That word has been so tainted by its association with failure the term “broken resolutions” has become a tired cliché.

I am going to suggest something very different. I suggest you set a theme for your year and, what’s more, I recommend a particular theme. The theme is: SLOW. Slowing down means going against the juggernaut of momentum in modern life to continually go faster.

We eat fast food, get our information via ever-faster networks on our cell phones and computers, are on the fast track at work, and many, if not most, of the advances in our day-to day lives are for the purpose of accomplishing tasks faster.

Look around and see where the continual push to live faster has gotten us. We’re overweight, over-stressed, over-committed, and overwhelmed. What is worse is, those of us who are parents teach this faster way of life to our children.

The formal beginning of the modern Slow Movement began in 1986, when Carlo Petrini organized a protest against the opening of a McDonald’s restaurant in the Piazza di Spagna, Rome. Petrini recognized that something irreplaceable was being lost in the rush to do things faster.

The enjoyment of simple things — savoring a good meal; spending time with friends (face to face, not via social networking); shopping locally, where you know the persons you are buying from, instead of malls and big-box stores — is at the core of living more slowly.

This used to be the default way to live. Food was grown or procured locally, social life revolved around family and immediate friends, and the pace of life of was slow. I remember it vividly. My parents owned only one car, did not have a microwave oven, dishwasher or clothes dryer. We had one black-and-white television, one telephone and no air conditioning. My friends and I played outdoors. My mother cooked our meals from scratch and we rarely ate out.

Today, my wife and I are “empty nesters.” We each have a cell phone and laptop computer. Our home has “zone” central air conditioning, washer/dryer, microwave, convection oven and myriad appliances to speed up housekeeping. We have three televisions, Wi-Fi and high-speed evenings find one or both of us on our laptops.

I have often felt my life has spiraled out of control.

What happened?

Technology happened. Progress happened. We are the apocryphal frog in the pan of water with technology heating the water, slowly at first, then faster and faster until it has reached a rolling boil and we sit there wondering why we are so uncomfortable. I am not a Luddite. Some aspects of technology are very positive and I would hate to give them up. I can Facetime my granddaughters from hundreds of miles away. I can Skype a cousin in France.

But other aspects of technology and progress are stealing our joy, probably shortening our lives, and destroying the only home we have, our planet.

The Slow Movement is an attempt to restore some sanity and balance to the way we live. It is not anti-progress, but rather seeks to make progress and technology our servant and not our master. It is taking back some of the good stuff of life before we lose it all.

Hare: If you go too fast you will miss the details; it’s the little things that makes life worthwhile.

Tortoise: Slow and steady doesn’t always win the race, just ask NASCAR drivers.

Tortoise and the Hare: The tortoise won the race, but the hare simply didn’t keep the same schedule.

Take food: People want cheap food and they want it fast, even if it means antibiotic and hormone-laden meat; pesticide and herbicide laced fruits and vegetables; and a veritable chemistry lab of preservatives, flavor enhancers, coloring agents and stabilizers. Slow food involves seeing food as a critical part of the fabric of our lives and one of life’s great pleasures. It means making an effort to buy locally and from providers using sustainable means to produce food, buying fresh products, and preparing them yourself. It also means taking time to savor a meal. As the name implies, slow food is the opposite of fast food in practically every possible way.

Or medicine. Many specialties, especially the primary care areas, such as family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics, are being burned out from the fast pace of modern medical practice and the need to see more and more patients within the same allotted time. Many doctors are looking for an “out” and have formed “concierge” practices, in which a doctor contracts with a select group of patients, who pay up front for exclusive care. Physicians can take on fewer patients, practice slower, and, in turn, patients have access to the doctor of their choice without the delays seen in most practices. Concierge medicine has been called “slow medicine” by some.

Slow living is a way of taking back some control over your life, which, if you are like most, has been hijacked by the insatiable monster we call progress. Sometimes real progress means stepping back to reflect on where you are, how you got there, and where you are headed.

May your 2015 be a slow one.

SLOW DOWN: SOME TIPS

1. Turn off the television and computer and go read a book.

2. Don’t send the kids outside to play; take them outside and play with them.

3. Fix a meal from scratch, serve it at a table with real dishes, cutlery, etc., then clean up without using the dishwasher and get the whole family involved doing it.

4. Instead of driving everywhere, look for opportunities to walk or ride a bike.

5. Surprise a friend by asking him or her to hang out for an afternoon or evening of conversation over a cup of coffee (brewed by you, not Starbucks).

6. Look for ways to avoid taking work home at the end of the day. Use your imagination.

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