Slow Down

Just imagine. You’re in your eighties or nineties, looking back on your life. Not at your accomplishments or the things you have to show for, but at the experiences you gathered. The ones you did for no one but yourself. Would you be smiling then? Would your heart feel whole? Would you know, deep down, that you truly lived? That you didn’t just pass through your days, but savoured them, fully, slowly, gratefully.

Holding this outlook in my heart now, I’ve begun to notice how precious the small, seemingly insignificant moments are. One of my favourites is late at night when I’m alone in my flat, gazing out my window. Looking down at the town below, and beyond it, the deep blue sea. From afar I see the waves tumbling, the sky and moon and clouds keeping them company. In those moments, I feel like a child again - chin resting gently on the windowsill, arms tucked beneath me, wide-eyed at the beauty outside. It’s peaceful. And that’s the kind of memory I’d like to look back on one day: knowing I paused, even for just a while, to notice the world around me. Not lost in the endless scroll of my phone, but present, awake, alive.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. I’m trying. Trying to slow down. But I often catch myself rushing, walking too quickly, racing home to shower, cooking a hurried dinner only to eat it just as fast. My brain feels wired for speed. As though I must always move quickly, as though time is slipping through my fingers. As though if I don’t figure everything out right now, I’ll somehow fall behind. That constant pressure, the sense of being late for a life I haven’t yet fully begun, pushes me to run, even when there’s nowhere urgent to be.

I think this comes from the uncertainty of not knowing exactly where I’m going or what I’m meant to be doing. And uncertainty can feel like failure, like an invisible stopwatch ticking louder and louder with each passing day. But perhaps it isn’t failure at all. Perhaps it’s a necessary part of living, an invitation to pause, to listen, to let life unfold rather than forcing it into shape before it’s ready.

Recently, I was listening to an interview with the poet David Whyte. He spoke about what it means to truly be on your path. “How do you know you are on your path? Because it disappears. How do you know you are really doing something radical? Because you can’t see where you’re going.” He went on to share David Wagoner’s poem Lost:

“Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you.”

Whyte explained that this poem teaches us three things:

1. You cannot sleepwalk your way into your destiny. You must wake up and pay attention. Stand still.

2. Without silence in your mind, the ability to say here, the voices of fear will always try to pull you away.

3. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.

To me, this is what slowing down truly means. It’s not about laziness or passivity. It’s about presence. About having the courage to stand still in the uncertainty of our lives and to trust that the path will reveal itself, piece by piece, if we only stop long enough to notice.

I think now, more than ever, especially for those of us in our twenties and thirties, there’s this crushing expectation that we should have everything figured out. That life should be neatly mapped and fully decided. But what if we changed that story? What if you aren’t meant to have life figured out, you’re meant to live it. To taste-test it. To wander. To experience whatever calls to you, and slowly, piece by piece, shape a life you truly love.

There is no one way to live. There is no right way to live. No clock you’re falling behind. The only “right” way is your way.

So, my advice? Embrace the now. Embrace the slowness. Find the things that fill your heart and let them matter. Notice the small things, even the ones that seem too small. And when the messy, chaotic, heartbreaking moments arrive, embrace those too. They’re proof that you’re alive.

Slow down. Trust that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be. And let life find you.

xx