The joys of taking it slow

I blogged about the book “Happy Money” earlier this year. One of the tips was about making good things a treat, another about giving time and experiences. One conclusion I drew was about making pleasures linger longer, and chores feel shorter.

I have changed my routine somewhat as a result of this insight. I love my morning cup of coffee, either made on the machine at home or a Latte from Starbucks or Panera. But it had become a routine. Every morning when I shopped I visited a store and had a latte, but I started to treat it just as a part of the shopping experience, almost a chore or at least a routine rather than a treat. Once I realized this, I mixed things up a bit. When at home, I waited to make my coffee a bit later in the morning some days. When shopping, some days I did without the latte and other days made it last a bit longer.

I try to do the same with other treats. As a rule, I make a pleasure as long-lasting and as different as possible, while a chore I’ll perform as routine. Washing day is Monday and follows a set pattern. Swimming is Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, always the same lengths. Shopping is in the mornings when queues are short. By making these things a routine, I can do them on autopilot, get them out of the way (but make sure they actually happen), think as little as possible and then forget about them quickly.

The potential for this kind of thinking depends on whether we are time rich or time poor. Time poor people find it easy to make chores a routine, but struggle to fit in enough joys and derive enough pleasure from them. Time rich people can drift into a semi-conscious state and forget to enjoy things too, and even drag out the chores sub-consciously to pass time. Each group has something to learn, and so do groups in transition – retirement represents a shift from time poor to time rich, a frightening shift for many and one that can only succeed by adopting new practices.

Finding things to do quickly and making them faster is the easy bit, because that is the trend in society. Look at Twitter, or speed dating, or Amazon, or binge TV, or sound bite politics. The time-poor are generally the innovators and much of the target market for innovations.

So, as someone still acclimatising myself to being time rich, I started thinking about all the things I could savour for their slowness. The list – compiled slowly and with joy – is a long one.

Whenever anyone asks me nowadays about what I actually do now I’m semi-retired, I ask them about the first hour of their day. It usually includes some chat with their partner, showering, breakfast, some check of e-mails and TV, and rushing to a commute. Well, I explain, that is how my day starts too, apart from the commute, but I make sure I take long enough over all the components and enjoy them all, sometimes for three hours overall. A slow start is my favourite treat.

The slow start includes other treats, one of them slow food. I am not a great cook and don’t really enjoy it, so I cook by routine. But eating is another matter. Breakfast and all meals taste much better if you let them last longer.

The slow start also includes some slow love. That has an everyday part, but the best bit is letting the relationship grow day-by-day, year-by-year. I suppose I understand the attraction of speed dating and tumblr (or whichever is the app that you just select based on a picture), but the joy of a real relationship is its slow development, through all the detours and surprises.

That is especially true for loving relationships, but it applies to any relationship. I have not yet become good at suspending my judgment of people and maintaining curiosity to be surprised them, but I am working on it and it is a very rewarding exercise. Everyone has depth if we only take time to explore it.

What applies to people applies to the world too. Slow news is much more interesting and uplifting than fast news. Fast news usually makes us sad, since it focuses on some disaster or insult or problem. Slow news, the sort found in periodicals and documentaries, tells us much more about our world and the people in it, and the joy comes from discovering that usually things are getting better, despite all that fast news emphasising how bad things are. The Economist is the best at slow news, and the articles full of charts that talk about societal trends are often wonderful.

Then there is slow entertainment. My favourite TV shows and movies are ones where the tension and the action build slowly. Here the British style suits me much more than the American. The crucial difference between US shows and British ones tends to be the pace – the British ones on PBS take their time, are not obsessed with constant action, but build tension as well as exploring character and situation. I wonder why – it might be national character, but more likely it is over-production in the US.

Sports are the same. The trend is for more immediacy, and that has its place – I enjoy 20/20 now in cricket for example. But still nothing beats the excruciating slow build up in a test match. I have come to love baseball for the same reason. Seemingly little can be happening for long periods, but in many cases it is a slowly unfolding story that is all the better for its measured pace.

Slow travel and slow hobbies are other categories. I have never been one for ticking off cities or countries at the frenzied pace, I prefer lingering in places. That sort of travel, and also hobbies like walking, are great also for enabling slow thought. Any concern or reflection or idea becomes better when it can stew over a long walk. Slow thoughts are usually the best thoughts.

There is one more category of slow that I’ve noticed lately while volunteering at a home for the very old. The category is a slow death. By this I don’t mean unwelcome lingering pain, though sadly sometimes that does exist. Rather it is about finding ways to enjoy as well as endure our declining years.

One challenge with decline is the frustration of small defeats. It can lead to recklessness and is a tough balance to find. Everyone may know that stopping driving, or a wheelchair or some other indignity is needed, but it is human nature to hold back such defeats for as long as possible. I don’t really have a solution to this, beyond counting blessings and considering how life is still better than the alternative.

But I do have one tip. Decline often represents one more transition, from time rich to time super rich. The lives of those in the home stretch over endless days of limited activity. The smart ones learn how to spin out and savour slow treats, be they a walk around the garden or a meal or even a Church service.

And all the slow ideas that apply from the transition from time poor to time rich apply even more when time appears endless. Baseball games and long TV series are a wonderful gift to such people – even if they might need two or three naps before the seventh inning stretch, a long evening can pass much easier with the slow build up of a ballgame.

So it would be good for all of us to develop slow pleasures to enjoy. If we are time poor, that may be about pauses and stolen joys. If we may soon transition to being time rich, slow pleasures are the best way to prepare. And the last transition gives us a chance to value slowness even more.