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The World Doesn’t Need More Successful People

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Mountains of Mendoza, Argentina

Photo Attributed To Thenix

There is a quote by author David Orr, from his 1992 book Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World:

“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”

I find that this quote speaks really well to the Minimalism movement – as we are all individuals who have given up the traditional route of being deemed successful and have moved on to other ways to defining our success. We do not need the big cars, or houses, or the thousand pairs of shoes to be regarded as successful. We have realized that beautiful experiences and stronger connections define us as successful. We realize that a life filled with traditional tenets of success, like money, power, fame, stuff, is empty. It reeks of discontentment. It stutters and stammers its way to depression and anxiety.

Why are we doing the things we are doing? Even though sometimes it’s hard to tell the non-minimalists in our lives, that we can’t do certain things as it isn’t something we are interested in anymore. Even if it might mean losing acquaintances, friendships, and even family relations. It makes us realize what is important and what isn’t. We are moving towards living the life we are meant to be living on this planet. It doesn’t allow for faltering or mistakes. It is clear-cut and it marks a clearly marked path towards peace and contentment.

The decision is yours. You have to choose between love and life. Between contentment and constant dissatisfaction with every aspect of your life. Between stuff and minimalism. The path and choice has always been yours. Now, it’s easier to choose the path of minimalism because there are so many of us out there and so many of us ready to support you.

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A Yoga Teacher As A Talking Mirror

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

The role of a Yoga teacher is varied and many. In many situations, the role of a yoga teacher is more of a confidante or a therapist where the students pour their hearts out after an especially trying class. In other cases, it is more of a presence, which ensures that the students keep on breathing, and moving with alignment into each of their poses.

Many times I would be in a class, and realize until the end of class, I didn’t even know what the teacher looked like, being so intensely dedicated to my own space and my own head. I believe that is the presence of a true teacher, who doesn’t really need to be seen to be heard. He/she is there as a ghostly presence, just as a guide, unseen, untouched.

The problem with being a good Yoga Teacher is that you are only good when your students don’t need you anymore. You are doing such a good job of guiding the class, that it becomes pretty much automatic. The students are able to sense where the class is going, and they want to run ahead, without actually taking care of alignment or precision movement. That is when you come back into the picture, ensuring that you remind them, ‘Yoga is about anti-rushing.’ You are supposed to bring back them to their own bodies, and not into competition with someone else. You are bringing them back into what they are capable of doing safely and with alignment.

Therefore, a yoga teacher cannot have an ego while in that studio space for the 60-90 minutes that they might be teaching. They cannot bring their own amazing skills in movement and show-off to the students. Everyone in the class space knows that the teacher is teaching as they are far more advanced than the students. They know that they have a long way to go before they can reach the expert movement of the teacher. The teacher has nothing to prove. Just the fact that they are in front of the class teaching is proof enough. Now it is their time to let the students shine in their own space.

The students should be able to leave the space feeling accomplished and amazed that they were able to do the poses that they were able to do. It should baffle them that this teacher was able to push them where no other teacher has taken them before. It should excite them to come back because they will be able to go further and deeper the next time around and the journey is endless and just beginning.

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Do Not Go Swiftly Into The Next Pose

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Photo attributed to flickr user rosmary

Photo attributed to flickr user rosmary

When I am in a yoga class, I try to stay within myself and my own practice. Of course, being human and curious as hell, I always want to look around. I want to keep the comparing down to a minimum, but I like looking around to see what people are wearing, how people are doing their poses, what their faces look like, etc.

It is one of the ways I entertain myself, for a few moments in a yoga class, while I am holding a pose. Of course, that always, always causes me to lose my balance, so next time, I swear to myself, no looking around in class. But I always falter. Being imperfect is human. That is not what this blog post is about, though.

I wanted to talk about moving from one pose to another. I was observing a few people in class, and I noticed that they moved into the pose that was coming before the yoga teacher actually spoke about it. I have been guilty of that motion several times myself. Whenever I’m in a class, that I have taken a hundred times before, I know how the teacher moves through the class, I know what poses she does. I am tempted to move into the next pose before the teacher even starts speaking about it. Every single time I do that, I feel guilty and ashamed, because the whole point of yoga is to stay in the moment, and not to rush into the next moment that comes. Of course, feeling guilt or shame isn’t the point either, but you get what I am saying.

I also notice that the way I move from one pose to another, reflects very much and translates into my life – if I am rushing through the poses, eager to move to the future, I’m the same way in life – rushing through the present, and eager for the future to come right now. I feel like a petulant child even just writing those words down, but that is how I behave on a regular basis.

Now whenever I am in class, one of my goals, is to stay within the pose I’m in, in the moment I’m in, and not rush into the next pose or moment. This also has the added benefit of relaxing me, and my mind. I’m not wondering what is coming next, instead I’m letting the teacher guide me, which is what her role is in class. I am supposed to be relaxing, while she takes care of the rest.

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Confusion translation

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Photo attributed to flickr user scarletgreen

Photo attributed to flickr user scarletgreen

I find that when I’m confused in one part of my life, that confusion translates into other parts of my life. The confusion shows up in random aspects of my life, like not being able to choose the correct partner, or being able to choose a yoga studio. Little things or big things, they all matter in the end, and they all end up in confusion.

I think it is a sign from the universe to wisen up, buck up, to man up. To move into the light, so to speak. To move from confusion to understanding. Even if that movement happens over a series of several days, weeks or months, the movement has to start happening soon. Any kind of decision, even a random one, can be a boon in the beginning of the journey.

As long as you stand in indecision, there is nothing that’s happening that would give you an indication of what’s happening in your life. You are not going to get any kind of indication, positive, or negative, towards the feasibility of the decision. Is it the right or the wrong way to go? We could argue about the fact that nothing is wrong or right, nothing is good or bad, everything just is. But everything always leans a certain way, at least in your head, and you might want to call that your gut feeling or instinct or intuition. Whatever it is, your heart is telling you, this is not the way to go.

As soon as you make a decision, the universe starts showing you little hints, towards your goal. It tells you are going the right way, or not. It tells you, if you need to tweak the moments a bit. It makes you meet people you might need in order to get towards your goal. It shows you random signs on the billboards and streets that affirm or negate your decision. Everything conspires in order to help you reach your goal…

But you have to make a decision. Do not hang in the unbalance of indecision. Move forth into the wind, any wind, and you shall get the answers you need.

How Do You Fill The Empty Space?

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Photo attributed to flickr user levilo

Photo attributed to flickr user levilo

I was reading Joshua Beckers’ post on ‘The Danger of Neglecting Time Alone’ recently and I came across a comment from one of the individuals that really made me think. Anita said, “My struggle is with checking email when I feel restless. When I get in those spaces, I can feel myself being bound to it. I’m looking forward to finding peace in that place.”

I found that comment really hit home, because I am a very restless Vata. I am anxious, constantly moving, always doing something, unbalanced, tiring myself out to the point of complete exhaustion, before dropping dead asleep. Even Thenix comments on the fact, that I am always doing something, yoga, or reading, or cooking or something, from the minute I wake up to the minute I fall asleep. My mind is constantly occupied with something.

I haven’t provided enough space for myself to even feel that emptiness. I do not know how to sit in silence and do nothing. Sometimes I do get the urge to just take a week off from everything, sit in an empty room, and stare at empty, white walls, without feeling, thoughts, emotions, work, or anything else.

The more suitable solution is solitude and meditation. The goal isn’t to fill the empty spaces, because the reason you have the empty space is so that you can be in that space and figure out the purpose of all of this surrounding you and all of you. The goal isn’t to run away from empty space, by watching drivel TV, or mindless consumerism. The goal isn’t to fear this empty space that is inside of every one of us.

The goal isn’t to be one of those people who live and die with the empty space untouched and unscarred.

The goal is to deep into that space, and stay there, despite the fear, despite the shame, despite the anxiety. Life will only reveal all the secrets to you when you are able to do that for an extended period of time, through meditation. Through concentrating on that deep space inside of you that nothing else in this universe can touch. Concentrate and release. Silent solitude. Ignorance and Bliss.

Meeting the edge

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Photo attributed to Thenix

I have been thinking about comfort zones for the past few days. I have wanted to write something about it, but nothing materialized. On Sunday, while sitting in a yin yoga class, the teacher spoke of meeting your edge when you are doing yin poses. But of course, everything about yoga can be applied to life in general, or anything else you can think of.

We are used to living in our comfort zone. We want life to be easy and simple. We try to remove all obstacles from it because we want to make sure  we do not have to think too much. We live in that zone where we do not have to rock the boat, and cause too much attention to fall upon us. We are at ease.

The real learning and movement forward happens when we move out of this ill-fated comfort zone. ‘Meeting the edge’ was a term that really triggered that for me. Whenever you are meeting the edge of your limits, you are growing and learning. It will be immensely uncomfortable. You are going to hate every minute of it, and that is alright. You are supposed to hate it. For anyone who’s done Yin Yoga, they know it is a slow practice, but do not mistake for a second that it will be easy. Pain and pleasure intermingle in this practice, where you are constantly kissing your edge, and then coming back to center.

Wouldn’t the constant movement towards edge get tiring, one might wonder? Of course, it would. You could burn yourself out with this constant movement towards the edge. Eventually, you will get addicted to this edge, and not be able to live in the centre, leading to the power-hungry, fame-hungry society of ours, that is destroying their home, planet and relationships to get to the top.

Comfort zone is sometimes the place you need to be in, when you’ve had a hard day and you just wish to rest. The situation demands, and you provide. Flexibility is key. Change accordingly.

Sleep as soon as your head hits the pillow

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PHoto attributed to Thenix

I have to admit. I am one of those lucky few who has no trouble falling asleep ever. I put my head down on my pillow and I am fast asleep, zonked out in five minutes flat, less if I have done yoga that day. I fall asleep for a straight 8 hours and I love it. I am a sleepaholic and I need help.

I find that the older I get, the more I want to sleep. In my teens and early twenties, I was a early riser and late sleeper. I didn’t sleep much, I didn’t rest much. I was on the go 20 hours a day and I was awake comfortably for days on end. I was a machine. Now that I am going to hit 30 in a year, I am hitting my sleeping stride. I want to sleep. I want to sleep all the time. I can sleep in, in the morning, I can sleep in the afternoon and I can still fall asleep at 0830pm at night. In fact, as soon as 9pm hits, I am ready for bed, and ready for some REM cycle.

My family laments at me for this behaviour. They are disappointed as they feel I love sleep more than them. I would rather go to sleep than hang out with them at the movie theatre, for a late show. I would rather go to sleep than stay up all night watching some old Bollywood movies. I would rather sleep than do a lot of other things. I find that my excuse is the following. I have long, busy days, filled with a lot of activity, both mental and physical. I need rest at the end of the day. I don’t think that is a lot to ask for.

I am not going to jeopardize my health and my day in order to do something rather mundane and boring. I might be called callous or selfish for that, but that is how the cards are played out. Sleep wins out over a lot of other things. Unfortunately, or fortunately.

All motion isn’t good motion

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Photo attributed to flickr user Chalkie_CC

Have you ever been so tired, you actually caused yourself to be sick? You work too hard, for a while, because you feel motivated. You have been doing really well in all your goals, you’ve been moving forward really fast, you are feeling like you can always do more. So you do more. You are in a state of perpetual growth, entropy and movement.
If you stopped for a second, you would realize how tired you are. So you never stop moving. You never stop doing. You keep yourself busy so as not to think.
Thenix pointed out to me, the futility of perpetual motion. He said, it is quite easy to mistake any kind of motion, for useful motion. You could be spinning your wheels incessantly without any movement forward. You could have really full days, but you are not actually doing anything useful.
You are filling your days, but you are not moving closer to any of your goals that actually matter. You are not learning how to live a better, more fulfilled life, you are just living. You are not growing in a positive fashion towards becoming a more sentient, enlightened, compassionate human being, but you are just looting the resources on Earth to grow in anyway, shape or form.
I wish you to take a moment and realize all motion isn’t good motion.
From this comes rest. You have to give yourself permission to rest. Rest without all the to-do lists humming through your brain. Rest without thinking, without degradation, without feeling worse for it.
Rest minimally, and happy that you can take the time out for yourself.

Weekends of nothingness

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Photo attributed to Thenix

When I started a new weekend, on Friday night, in my previous unformed years, I would literally panic if I didn’t have all of the hours packed with things to do. It would send me into a deep spiral of depression, because I would feel unwanted and unloved. If I was liked, I would have every single second of my weekend and my weeknights packed with people and things to do. I literally didn’t feel like I had any time off, and I liked it. It is when I had a night with nothing to do that I floundered about the house feeling useless and meaningless.

I tutored Maths and GMAT courses on the weeknights and I partied till dawn Friday and Saturday night, dined or lunched with friends during the day and went to yoga in the mornings. There was no rest, and a lot of activity. But there was also no time for contemplation, no time for reflection, no time for staring off into space, no time to ponder the mysteries of life. No time for anything except meaningful/less movement, depending on how you looked at it.

As I began to do a lot more yoga, I felt the need to slow down. to pare down the activities in my life, to say no to people and activities. I removed my second job from the picture, I didn’t really need the extra money, I just spent it on meaningless activity anyways. I removed meaningless dinners or lunches. I only went out to eat once every two-three weeks, and I made sure that it was at a place I really wanted to try out, so it would be special, it would have some meaning. I started cooking some more, which slowed me down, because cooking in itself is a very Zen activity.

I slowed down and I found that just the act of slowing down added a lot to my day. To my life in general. I felt more in control and I felt more alive. I had more meaning, because I had more time to think about the important things. I had time to contemplate my navel or stare at an empty wall or ceiling. It felt really good.

Being afraid of core exercises

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Photo attributed to flickr user snowpeak

I had the most amazing class over the weekend – a yoga class, of course. I sat there after class, after the rinsing out that a dear yoga teacher friend of mine gave us. She had just come back from Paris, and before class, we had a brief conversation that for some reason dictated the rest of the class for me. She had moved to Paris for two months, wanting to see if she wished to move there permanently. She realized that she liked traveling in Europe, but she doesn’t like the day to day in Europe. She moved back to Toronto and realized she liked it here. It renewed her vigor of wanting to find some stability in her life here, get a steady paycheck, and find someone to share her life of yoga and love with.

She took us through some pretty intense core exercises, and every time, we would start a new set of exercises, I fumbled. I floundered. I stopped. I didn’t want to do it. I mentally cursed the exercise. I mentally defeated myself with negative thoughts about my body, and my weak core, before I even started the exercise. I was self-defeating in my core exercises.

This translated after class, in my brief sivasana/meditation time, as being afraid of my own personal power. I am an amazing individual, with a lot to offer the world, but I am fearful to be too much. I am fearful to be too joyful, too ecstatic, too yogi, too physical, too passionate, too happy, too alive, too anything. People are afraid of extremes. At least in my head, I believe that if I do too much, with too much enthusiasm, it will turn people off. I hold myself back, because I do not want to show people up.

I have been doing this all my life. I used to get really great grades in high school, but it was a new high school, I had joined, and I wanted to make friends. I didn’t want to be alone. Lonely. I started doing a little poorly in my favorite class, English. I realized how far I had taken it, when I asked a girl for help a year later, and she was surprised at it. She told me, she had always envied my skills in English, as I had usurped her as the best in English class, and now, I am asking her for help. She gave me help, but she also taught me a fair lesson. I had let others gain power in my life. Over me.

Core exercises are going to be the way I bring that personal power back. I am going to use those core exercises to be all that I am meant to be, without holding anything back. IT is quite scary, even thinking about it, but it is something I have to do, to Level up.

Everything is interconnected

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Photo attributed to flickr user snowpeak

How many times have you heard that statement before? And maybe you paid attention, but mostly you just ignored it, because it is the same old statement as the past. Isn’t it?

I mean, what does it really mean? Until you actually see the interconnectivity of life, you are going to be separate from that statement. One of the easiest ways to see how everything is connected to everything else is through the practice of yoga. The minute you start doing yoga is the minute you realize how your body is one big interconnected web.

If you move your little toe wrong, it throws your neck out of alignment. If you aren’t aligned in your head, you aren’t aligned in your body. If you wear improper shoes, the effect will be transmitted from your ankle, to knee, to hip to back to neck.

How do you utilize this information? The real reason, I pay attention to this minutiae of details, is because everything matters. The way you looked at the security guard in your building this morning, the food that you put into your body when you ate lunch, the way you conducted yourself at work, with joy or boredom, the way you sleep at night after a long day.

Everything matters and everything is interconnected. Some might say that this puts a lot of pressure on us as human beings. We always have to abide by the highest standards in everything, we have to be careful about what our senses take in, what we say, how we sit, how we conduct ourselves in every single way.

No one ever said, life would be easy. But they did say, that it would be interesting.

Try this for one day. Pay attention to as much as you can. Don’t drive through your morning commute on automatic, don’t eat breakfast, lunch or dinner, without thinking, don’t work as if you are bored to death with it, do everything with care and attention.

Let me know what you think of the exercise.

Strip clubs

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Photo attributed to flickr user Lamerie

My girlfriends always berate me when I go to strip clubs with my guy and friends, because apparently, I am supporting an industry that degrades women and causes inequality in society. But of course this doesn’t extend to wearing short skirts, high heels, and making a fool of ourselves in male strip clubs.

I find that prostitution and strip clubs in general do not promote a skewed view of women, unless we as women let it happen. I have been friends with many women who worked as strippers to pay their university tabs, or mortgages off, and they found that this was one of the easiest ways to make a load of cash in the shortest amount of time. They deliberately chose this path, when they had degrees in finance or marketing, because working in those fields paid a miniscule fraction of the money they would make working in a strip club. A lot of them had normal side jobs, working as servers or tellers before this, but a little taste of the money that they made in this field, removed them completely from those ‘normal’ side jobs.

They were able to make enough money in a few years to make themselves self-sufficient and independent of any man on this planet. I didn’t think when I heard these stories that these women were lopsided in society in anyway. I would say, they were actually better off then some working women in society, as the working women didn’t make enough money to ever be self-sufficient or independent.

Of course, these are just few of the women that I knew, and they are just a fraction of the women who actually work in the industry. I just wanted to point out that there are two sides to every situation. We can’t just berate something or commend something without realizing there are those two sides.

Do you frequent strip clubs? What do you think of them and the women who work in them?

Do you believe in the hype of a strong core?

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Flickr photo attributed to mikebaird

I have always had a weak core – which has been a point of contention that I have with myself. I will not give up carbs, but I want a strong core. In the past few weeks, I have been noticing myself and my body a little bit more than I normally do. It is one of my new year’s resolutions that I am working on every minute of every day. I believe, if I do not know myself, I cannot progress in my goals.

I noticed that in February and March, I was teaching a lot of hot yoga. I taught six days a week, seven classes per week, for two months. I lost a lot of weight, but more importantly, my core was the strongest and sleekest it had ever been. I felt lighter, I felt stronger, and I felt like I had more energy than ever. I was able to sit for ten hours at a desk, and work productively, without losing steam in the afternoon, then go and teach two classes of yoga at night, and still have energy to go out dancing at night, before collapsing in a heap around four in the morning.

I stopped teaching so much yoga because it was all I did with my days, and as summer came along, I wanted more time to myself, more time for my own practice, and more time with friends and family. I wasn’t in balance.

I noticed that I gained some of the weight back, but more importantly, I gained some fat around my mid-section. I find that this little amount of fat that I have, really restricts my energy flow in more ways than I can delineate.

I am hungrier more often, I eat more than I normally do, I am guessing to feed the fat that is around my belly. I am not as efficient in yoga as I used to be, because my belly comes in the way. I can feel it restricting my movement, and my breath. I also feel my energy levels have gone down, because my body is not as sleek as it was a few months ago.

This really motivated me, because it confirmed even further the importance of having a sleek core. It is not just because it looks good, which it does. But because of the myriad factors of efficiency, strength, balance, and movement.

I am working diligently at taking care of my diet, and doing as much yoga as possible, to get back to that zone of toned belly and high energy.

What do you think of the hype around a strong core?

What causes me to get impatient and want things to move along quicker

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I have realized that boredom causes me to want things to move faster. When I am distracted and busy, when I have a million things going on, when I do not have time to think, when I do not have time to even breathe, I am busy enough that I do not notice the fact that things are moving slowly or moving at the pace that they are meant to move at.

Of course, that is the problem with silence. Most of us are uncomfortable with silence because it brings up all of the angst that we just want to shove in the back of our mind, in the deep recesses of our brain. We just do not want to think about it. The things I do not want to think about are the following:

  1. Am I living the life that I am meant to be living?
  2. Have I done everything with my life that I should do or am I letting my fears hold me back?
  3. Am I playing it safe by staying with this job or should I do something else?
  4. Why does it matter if I play it safe?
  5. Why am I so critical of myself?

I am sure there are some other things that I just do not want to think about. I do think about them because I have to. I have to think about it, because I cannot help thinking about it. I have this desire inside of me to just go on and on. I never want to stop thinking or growing or living to the fullest.

If I feel there is a day that I didn’t live to the fullest then I am in trouble with myself. I have to berate myself of course because that’s what a female does, but more importantly, I have to move on and go onward and upward.

Any other questions you think are important but ignored. Let me know by commenting below. Thanks.

What is my plan to free myself from the rat race?

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I think that question must be on a lot of your minds. How am I going to free myself from the 9-5 chains that have bound us all? How am I going to move on, move up and move forward? How will I break free and travel for the rest of my life?

The real answer is that I do not have an answer. 

Hilarious, right? I know that sounds iffy and a little bit crazy. My plan really is just to do it. Like Nike says all the time, I am not going to think about it, I am not going to analyze it, I am not going to dissect it. I am just going to pick a date, and I am just going to do it.

I am going to leave. I am going to save up enough money to travel for a year and I am going to ensure I have enough money to pay off my student loan interest while I am gone. I am going to sell the car. I am going find a good renter for my condo, and I am going. I am off to the winds, to the heavens and to the light.

I am going to walk around like a bum for a year, wearing clothes that are dirty, that are dusty, that have tears in them. I am going to carry all my belongings on my shoulders, in a little backpack, that will sustain me for a year. I will eat at little street-side stalls. I am going to spend at least 20 of the 24 hours in a day outdoors, under the clouds and the sun. I am going to spend maybe 1-3 hours a week on a computer and that is all, nothing compared to the 50 hours a week that I spend right now. I am going to meet random people and become instant friends with them, sharing all my dreams, and aspirations with them. I am going to see different cultures and see how people from other countries live, work, and interact with each other, learning from them and giving back to them. I am going to support the local economies of all of these places little by little, by giving a dollar here and a dollar there.

Finally, I am going to be living life the way human beings are meant to live, moving from place to place, not stuck at a desk, and just dancing my life away with good food in my belly and good company in my stead.

The plan. Ah, yes, the plan. The plan shall come. Once you make the decision, a strong decision. A decision that is so deep inside of you, that it is you, the plan shall come to you. It shall come to you in the form of friends and strangers helping you out, money that just appears to drop into your lap, and opportunities that just appear out of nowhere.

The universe will help you along. Whatever God you believe in, will help you out. Once you decide, every force in the universe will conspire to help you out.

You do not need to worry. I do not need to worry. The plan is coming, in fact, I already see it peeking through the curtains at me.

Let me know what you think of my ramblings below. :)

 

Why do we love bodies that sweat and feel pain?

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This is an odd topic perhaps, but for me, I very much enjoy watching a body that is being pushed to the limits, that is sweating through the limits, and is pushing through the pain to get to the end of the finish line. Why does it inspire so, when you watch a body jumping through hurdles, moving through the pain and sweating throughout the whole process? What is it about seeing a beautiful body in motion (all human bodies are beautiful in their own way), that just makes the heart sing? I just wanted to put it out there. I love being a yoga instructor, just to see the delight on their faces after a hard class, on making it to the end. Sweat equals results. What do you think of bodies in motion> Love or hate? :)

Living the slow life in the city

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I agree with you when you say that I have a Type-A personality. I am in constant motion, in constant movement. I hide it well, under the facade of yoga and meditation, but I am on the go for 18 hours a day, straight through, every day, even on weekends. Eventually the system breaks down and cries out for rest, which is what happened when I got an infection last week. Any illness or sickness in general means the system’s run down, as the immune system is not up to par.

I was thinking on my way to the office today – what about the slow movement? Why hasn’t it pervaded any of my friends’ circles? Is it because we are the generation of Internet and fast food, and iPhones and High definition? We are moving fast, and faster everyday.

Is it possible to live the slow life in a big city? Or do we have to move to a farm outside cities, and give up everything in order to live a slow life? That’s a question that I really want to answer.

I know it doesn’t seem like an important question to some, but to me, it is THE question to answer right now. I am living a fast life, but I believe, I really, truly believe, it is possible to live a slow life in a big city. How do we do that? Some suggestions are below, but if you have any more, please add them into the comments section.

1. Give up your car. Just having a car means you want to get to places faster. Taking the bus, biking or walking slows things down significantly.

2. To follow giving up your car, you have to live close to your work. Walking or biking just doesn’t work, when your commute by car itself is an hour long.

3. Reduce your wants – that means you are not spending a lot of time working in order to pay off your bills. You are using your time to live, instead of living to pay off bills, for things you do not have time to use.

4. Slow food – cooking a meal and sitting down to slowly savor it is in my opinion one of the best ways to live in the moment.

What else?