Waking up
Deciding to step on the path of slow living felt like waking up. So many unfoldings were leading up to this moment. Feeling deep sorrow about overwork and busyness in academia, experiencing wonderful benefits of living a simple life with very few things, spending quality time with myself and having inner dialogues. I asked myself what kind of life I wanted to live, what kind of human being I want to be. And then something shifted in my consciousness. For some, stepping on a path of a more ecological living is a one-off decision. For me, practising zero-waste, extreme minimalism, simple living has definitely been a journey. Most changes were gradual and gentle. When it comes to practising, say, extreme minimalism, changes are material and obvious. It is clear what practices extreme minimalism entails. With a shift in consciousness towards slow living, it is not yet clear to me what it entails and what changes it will bring.
I've been incorporating slowness in so many aspects of my life for the past 15 years, but it was very fragmented. For example, early on in my journey I decided to stop flying and choose slower means of transportation instead. I even chose not to invite a bicycle into my life, as I wanted to walk everywhere. Early on I also decided not to consume fast fashion and fast food. I didn't want anything "fast" in what I consumed in general. Anything that I need to replace or re-do often, such as haircuts. I decided not to use an alarm and wake up slowly and naturally instead. While I was excluding such things from my life, I also overworked and overcommitted myself to things. For example, in my academic journey I said yes to things that were not part of my contract, just because someone above me in the hierarchy was busy or felt like they had more important things to do. I said yes to my partner when he proposed without taking my time and thinking carefully about what a new mode of being together entails. For example, we didn't come to an agreement about potentially having a child, or what will happen if I take a job somewhere else. I said yes to moving to another apartment that I had reservations about.
Somehow I feel that a shift akin to the one I'm experiencing should have happened many years ago. I've been reflecting a lot on that. I was thinking why it didn't unfold in my late teens or early twenties when I felt so profoundly that I wanted to live a simple life, with a lot less than what is the norm in our society. Perhaps I was used to a faster pace of life and making decisions quickly, re-enacting insecurities and social norms (such as thinking that someone else knows better). It's a journey of un-learning.
