Slow Down

It was a Sunday afternoon in April. I was alone in nature, trying to rewind, to be quiet for a while.

At some point, I noticed an insect climbing a stick I had with me.

I made it move from one end of the stick to the other by changing where I held my hand. Whenever it reached one end, I would take hold of the opposite side, and it would turn around and climb back.

Again.

And again.

Each round seemed faster than the one before.

It kept moving because the path kept changing. There was always another end to reach.

After several rounds, it stopped.

For a moment, it did nothing.

Then it flew away.

I remember wondering why it hadn't done that before.

Was it tired? Had it finally realized that the stick wasn't the only world available to it? Where was it going? And while it had been running up and down that stick, where did it think it was going?

Maybe, in its little world, it thought it was going somewhere.

Maybe it thought it was trying to reach freedom.

I didn't know then that I was watching myself.

Running and arriving

There is a difference between moving and going somewhere.

I have spent a lot of time moving.

Starting things. Building things. Planning things. Thinking about the next thing. Thinking about the person I could become. Thinking about what I should have achieved by now.

There is a strange comfort in movement.

When you are moving, you feel like you are making progress.

But sometimes you are only becoming very efficient at going in circles.

I didn't notice this in myself for a long time.

I only noticed it when something I had been running towards became impossible to reach. I couldn't understand why I wanted it so badly, so I went back to my journal to find the beginning of the chase.

And there it was.

The insect on the stick.

I had written the story months earlier without understanding that I was writing about myself.

Chasing and knowing why

Chasing makes you ask, “How fast can I get there?”

Slowing down makes you ask, “Why am I going there?”

That second question is uncomfortable.

Because sometimes the answer is not as beautiful as the goal.

Sometimes I was chasing because I was afraid of being left behind.

Sometimes I wanted more because what I already had didn't feel like enough.

Sometimes I wanted people to stay because I was afraid, they would leave.

Sometimes I wanted a bigger vision because I had not learned to appreciate the smaller one.

And sometimes I was simply responding to the noise around me.

The world is very good at telling us what to want.

More.

Faster.

Bigger.

Earlier.

Better.

But desire is a terrible judge of longevity.

How much you want something right now tells you very little about whether it will still matter to you later.

More and enough

Desire is useful. It tells you what has your attention.

But it is a poor judge of what deserves your future.

Chasing makes “more” feel like the answer.

Slowing down makes you look at what is already in your hands.

I have asked myself, Why can't I be trusted with the big things?

But perhaps the better question was:

Have I even learned to be trusted with the small things?

I wanted the next level while neglecting the level I was already in.

I wanted the bigger project without fully appreciating the one already completed.

I wanted more influence without always paying attention to the people already listening.

I wanted the future version of myself while failing to live properly as the present version of myself.

Slowing down changed that.

It taught me that the small thing isn't merely something to escape from on the way to something bigger.

Sometimes it is the place where you learn how to carry the bigger thing.

Building and appreciating

I have created things and immediately started thinking about what should come next.

Another project.

Another idea.

Another improvement.

Another version.

And somewhere in all that movement, I forgot to stop and ask:

What did this become? Who did this help? What did I learn? How far have I actually come?

There is a kind of greed even in creativity.

You can keep producing without ever experiencing what you have produced.

You can build so much that you never have time to live inside what you built.

I have lost some of that.

I have lost routines.

I have lost standards.

I have lost touch with people.

I have lost pieces of myself.

And strangely, some of those losses happened while I was supposedly moving forward.

I have lost more chasing than I have achieved.

Speed and consistency

Speed feels impressive.

Consistency rarely does.

Speed gives you something to talk about today.

Consistency gives you something that still exists tomorrow.

I think we often misunderstand consistency.

Consistency isn't doing something once and then finding another exciting thing to do.

It isn't constantly reinventing yourself because you think the next version will finally be enough.

Consistency is staying with something long enough to understand it.

It is returning.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Not because nothing better exists, but because you have decided that what is in your hands is worth developing.

That takes slowness.

A tree doesn't become strong by constantly changing where it is planted.

Performing and living

I have also discovered that chasing can turn life into a performance.

I have learned piano, coding, music, chess, design, and many other things.

But sometimes I don't use what I know.

Why?

Because I want to become good enough first.

I want to perform when I am ready.

I want the finished version.

The polished version.

The version that cannot embarrass me.

And so I keep preparing for a future that never arrives.

That is another form of chasing.

You can even chase perfection while standing completely still.

Slowing down has made me ask a different question:

What can I do with what I have now?

Not when I'm perfect.

Now.

Fighting and seeing

When you rush, every obstacle feels like something standing between you and your destination.

When you slow down, you begin to see the situation itself.

You notice what the obstacle is teaching you.

You notice what needs to change.

You notice what needs to stay.

You notice which battles are actually yours.

Slowing down doesn't remove the battle.

It changes your position in it.

You stop fighting everything blindly and start participating with understanding.

That matters.

Because slowing down will cost you something.

It will cost you some opportunities.

Some expectations.

Some versions of yourself.

Some things you desperately wanted.

And it won't always feel like peace at first.

Sometimes slowing down feels like falling behind.

Planning and trusting

I have spent a lot of time trying to create doors.

Trying to make things happen.

Trying to force the future into existence.

But I am learning to leave some doors to God.

Not because I should stop working.

But because I don't have to manufacture everything.

There are things I can build.

There are things I can pursue.

And there are things I need to wait for.

Slowing down has helped me notice the difference.

Perhaps God has already opened a door that I was too busy running past to see.

The future and the present

We talk about the future as if it is where life begins.

When I get the job.

When I make the money.

When the project succeeds.

When I become better.

When I become known.

When I become who I think I am supposed to be.

But what if the future is being built by the way I live today?

What if I keep postponing peace because I believe peace belongs to another version of me?

What if I keep postponing joy?

Friendship?

Creativity?

Faith?

Life?

You can spend so much time preparing for your future that you never actually live your present.

And then one day you arrive at the future and realize you brought the same restlessness with you.

Chasing God and walking with Him

Even with God, I have sometimes approached faith with the same urgency.

I want answers.

I want growth.

I want direction.

I want to become better.

I want to understand.

I want to get somewhere.

But perhaps God is not asking me to run harder.

Perhaps He is asking me to walk with Him.

There is a difference.

Running towards God can still be about me getting somewhere.

Walking with God requires me to notice who I am becoming along the way.

Maybe slowing down is not a lack of faith.

Maybe it is an expression of trust.

Trust that I don't have to become everything today.

Trust that what God is doing does not need my panic.

Trust that I can be faithful with what is already in front of me.

The person you are becoming

I used to think the process was something happening between where I am and where I want to be.

Now I think differently.

I am the process.

Every decision is shaping me.

Every relationship is shaping me.

Every habit is shaping me.

Every season is shaping me.

So if I refuse to slow down now, I don't escape the process.

I only carry the consequences of my speed into the future.

The person I become later is being formed by the person I am willing to be today.

That is why slowing down matters.

And then, freedom

I keep thinking about that insect.

It spent so much time moving along the stick.

Back and forth.

Faster and faster.

Until it stopped.

And then it flew.

Maybe it was tired.

Maybe it discovered something.

Maybe it simply reached the point where continuing to run no longer made sense.

I don't know.

But I know what it made me realize.

Sometimes the thing keeping us from freedom is not that we cannot move.

It is that we cannot stop.

I have done better when I slowed down.

I have seen more clearly.

I have appreciated more.

I have become more consistent.

I have noticed people.

I have noticed myself.

I have noticed God.

And I have started to understand that being better is more important than becoming impressive.

Maybe you don't need another plan.

Maybe you don't need another chase.

Maybe you don't need to become someone else before you are allowed to live.

Maybe you need to slow down enough to see what is already here.

One step.

One day.

One thing at a time.

Tomorrow has enough trouble of its own.

Slow down.

Not because you have given up on becoming.

But because you finally understand that you are already becoming.