Sometimes I find it difficult to slow down and stop. Its like everyone, including myself are chasing after something. What that might be differs for everyone, and mostly I don't really know why and what I'm chasing.
It's as if the atmosphere I find myself in compels me to join the hordes in the elusive race, or else face the embarrassment and rejection of being left behind, and lesser off.
While I was driving up from Cape Town to Jeffrey's bay - a 7 hour drive on the last day of a long weekend, I could not help but notice the sheer intensity of the oncoming traffic back into Cape Town. The Pimped out SUV's with bicycles, luggage and cool cat sunglasses all speeding past me like a Mexican bull stampede trying to get back to whatever they were busy with before giving it a chill over the long weekend.
I notice all these things because I myself am part of the stampede sometimes. But this day I wasn't.
We give it our 100% when in the office and part of the work force, but when its holiday time, we speed there in an attempt to wind down for a few days - trying to live a little, and then speed back to our normal lives. We have to speed, because if we miss out on the rat race, if we are not prepared enough when Monday comes, we might slack down and screw up here and there and miss out on our pay-check and the next big holiday.
I can probably judge a little because I have a great Job that allows me to work remotely - and stay out of the physical rat race when I feel like it, so maybe I judge a little unfairly. But that should not stop me from judging, for in doing so I judge myself if I may ever fall into the situation where all I have is the rat race.
In any case, after being in the rat race for 2 months, I came back to the easy coastal life and realised how hard it is for me to slow down. The more I started to slow down, the more depressed I became. Why? Well it's because I have emotional baggage because of a relationship that got screwed up a few months before getting back into the rat race.
I could not really face it, for facing it meant a lot of pain and tears. So its easier just to speed up again and chase the next thing to get whatever I'm feeling and thinking deep-down out of the way until it vanishes.
Been there done that. It doesn't work. Somewhere it will pitch up again and bite you hard in the ass. Or the next big thing you chase might also fail, and to cope with that failure you might just push harder for the next thing - until the whole skyscraper comes crashing down vertically in one big spell of dust of destruction. No thanks.
So slowing down is difficult sometimes because we have to deal with whatever we are trying not to face, and its difficult. Really difficult. Sometimes too difficult.
On the other hand, I have seen that life happens in the NOW. The more we put if off, the more we miss out on real life and postpone our own happiness to tomorrow, next month, or when I can afford that house, have that wife or that goal.
If the means with which you reached your goal was with persistent putting off the now, then maintaining the goal, or reaching the next goal will also be by the same means - putting off the now. In the end the lifespan of the goals are exponentially shorter than the putting off of life.
The only way to truly be satisfied and content is to slow down and stop. And while you're at it, face your inner demons with tears and pain - then reap the rewards of constant fulfilment in the now, rather than chasing stuff we blindly think will be better than we have right now.
Like I said, I'm judging widely, its not one shoe fits all theology here, but I know that the just of what I'm saying is true, I have experienced it in my own life.
So for me, its back to facing myself, my loneliness, emptiness, regrets and fears. And once I've faced them I know they will come up empty, because they are only a byproduct of chasing imaginary carrots anyway.
