The ultimate life hack
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet
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Art by Ward Jenkins
“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” - Aristotle
Life hacks and quick fixes - we’re obsessed with them. They’re everywhere. “Get rich in 90 days”, “get abs in 30 days”, “make this delicious meal in under 20 minutes”.
We all get impatient sometimes, and it’s not always a bad thing. Spending an unnecessary amount of time on something that could’ve been done quicker seems pointless. If one check-out line at the grocery store seems to be moving faster than the other, I’ll go stand in that line 100% of the time.
But then there’s consistent impatience; it’s when we seem to be impatient about all matters, regardless of its significance; it’s when anything that we feel slows us down makes us mad: The software that won’t load; the red light that seems to be broken; the friend who takes long to get ready.
When left unaddressed, consistent impatience can lead to unhealthy and dangerous habits. ‘Why eat slow when I can eat fast?’, ‘Why drive 55 mph when I can drive 90 mph?’.
And look, I get it. Sometimes, there are valid reasons for rushing, such as:
We got somewhere we need to be (not saying this is a valid reason for speeding!)
We feel uncomfortable (such as feeling anxious at the grocery store)
But is that typically the case, or are we often rushing for the sake of… well, rushing?
This past year or so, most of the meals that I’ve cooked have been rushed. Boil some pasta, throw in some beans and call it a day has been my mantra. I've told myself I don’t have time to invest in any heavy-duty recipes (meanwhile, I’d spend hours mindlessly scrolling on my phone. There’s always time for that, isn’t there?).
And sure, it “saved” me a lot of time and effort, but it also sucked every bit of joy there was out of cooking.
About a month ago, I made a commitment to myself that I would start cooking mindfully again. I talked about it in this video. I now try new recipes weekly, and I take my sweet time to get the right ingredients and seasoning. I taste the food several times while it’s cooking to make sure the flavour is to my liking (I used to never do this). My joy for cooking has been re-kindled, simply by taking my time.
So, here's the ultimate life hack, from me to you: slow the f*ck down. You’ll be glad you did.
As I said in my latest YouTube video, “Constant hurry makes life blurry. One day you’ll reach the end of it, feeling like you never attended it.”
This Monday morning, I invite you to think about one area in your life that could be slowed down.
/Lana
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There's a central mental connection there, isn't there? How many rushed habits are a consequence of a hurried mind—and how often does a hurried mind cause us to rush through our actions? And it's something I often struggle with when trying to keep up in a world that moves much faster than my mind is meant to. Moments or periods of time that require intense productivity drain me, and my downtime is often wasted due to burnout—the simple inability to muster the energy to do what's good for you. So it's been an active struggle in my life, trying to find meditative or cathartic activities that I can build into the process. Running in nature brings me to that state—that "in the moment" sort of zen where I am simultaneously in my head and experiencing the world around me in a delicate sort of balance—but I have yet to find ways to practice prayer or meditation in such a way that replicates that effect when I'm unable to run, either due to injury, illness, or a prohibitive schedule.
Lately, I've been taking time to read for a few minutes at night by going to my old standby, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, which resonates with me in a way few things do, and I've taken out some books on meditation hoping to learn from them, but it's a tricky thing, being measured and deliberate in a frenzied and chaotic world. One final note worthy of mention is that I've also found the ability to recalibrate my mind to a more comfortable pace by having deliberate, thoughtful conversations with others whose minds tend to move at a slower, more contemplative pace. And that tends to be by going deeper than surface level in our conversations. I tend to use the diving metaphor for thought and it works here: you can't rush through the deeps like you can skim along the surface of the ocean, and you can't explore new depths without slowing down and opening up your senses. And if you come up too quickly, you can get seriously hurt.
So yeah, no conclusions here. Just my immediate thoughts (somewhat ironically scribbled in a hurry on my way to doing something else).
I love this message. For me Patience and discipline are the two best human traits that we need to practice, because I believe that peace can be found by handling things diligently. This is also what I believe happens to our brain when we're reading a book as reading a book is not as simple as watching a show because we need to carefully read and analyze the words or we'll get lost in the story.
BTW are you planning on making a compilation of these 'Monday Ro'? I'll definitely buy this as a book!
PS. I can cook an egg for less than 3 minutes and that egg would taste delicious LOL