The Art of Slowing Down
Have you ever known about Mark Manson’s book?
Ya, He inspires me to write the title of this article. But, the content is a little bit different. I want to tell you about how to slow down appropriately. Because sometimes, slowing down is not appropriate in one case.
Slowing down also relates to stoicism. It teaches us to be mindful in any situation. Anyway, I have been using the stoic approach in my life. We know that life is not flat. There is always something that distracts our mind and feeling. So, I tried to use the approach by controlling what I think and what I feel.
It helps me to face any situation better than before. I imagine living a distraction-free life all day. I can imagine that my thought is full of positive minds, and my heart is full of positive emotions. It’s not easy, but it is possible.
What is stoicism precisely?
You can read about stoic in another place cause some people focus on explaining this. One author that focuses on stoicism is Darius Foroux. You can read his article about it deeply.
Here I want to share about stoicism from my perspective. To me, it is about seeing the world from a normal angle. I mean, we see the world as God’s plan. Whatever comes to us is part of the plan. We cannot control the universe. We cannot control the sun, the rain, the volcanic mountain, etc.
What we have to do is be slow down for a while. And believe in God.
That is what I understand about stoicism. However, we should be careful cause it doesn’t work when we apply it to our task. I mean when we are slowing down by procrastinating.
We cannot hope that God will finish our task magically. So, we should do it by ourselves first.
Therefore, there are positive and negative sides to slowing down. It’s good to feel it when facing a problem or setback. But it’s not good to face the task because it will change to laziness or procrastination.
The art of slowing down is not about avoiding important tasks but rather about thinking and feeling good in any situation. We can feel good even though it is hard. That is the challenge. The key is to slow down your negative emotion while doing the task.
The conclusion is that you need to control your thought and feeling by slowing down appropriately. Whenever you face a problem, slow down. Think about it carefully. Control your feeling. Then make a decision.
