Living faster than Life

How can we slow down when life is so fast?  It's a question I ask myself a lot, especially on days when it feels like there are endless demands for my time. Instead of being blissfully contented with our hectic lives, we feel permanently agitated and laboured, though we are careful to conceal it as much as possible from others, and ourselves.

No matter how much the intelligentsia scrutinises the youth for their comfortable and laid-back attitude united with effortless access to knowledge and resources, one thing that has scarred the youth for life is the fast-paced reality of the environment we live in. The suddenness and unpredictability of developments around us leave us with no respite but to move with flow or get washed away with time. You always have to advance and there are no limits to how far you can go or how fast you can get there. "Don't pause, don't reflect. You win or lose. You'll fall behind and fail if you stop moving." Practices that used to cause embarrassment became proudly rationalized as multi-tasking, a new skill to master. You juggle 10 plates while you brag about your 90-hour week and take sleeping pills for rest.

The carefree attitude is a facade to conceal the instability and the fear of being abandoned. The facade is not only to society but even to ourselves, we hide our feelings to be 'productive' and 'woke'. Eliminate our mask and we are overwhelmed by the sentiments not realizing we were suppressing them all this time.

These robots of today are incompetent in nurturing a relationship of any kind. We are too concerned about the future to be aware of the present. The 21st century has turned the world into a transient place without any sleep, the young generation is deprived, emaciated and starved of stability and emotional attachment. Fed by the grandiosity and omnipotence of these beliefs, people get high on the emotions of endless possibility with no need to ever stop or slow down. While this high-stress lifestyle may give the illusion of productivity and unusual performance, it can take a huge toll on your mind-body stability, happiness, and essence of life.

The growing FIRE (financial independence, retire early) movement is commonly sought with enthusiasm under the assumption that retiring to escape unfulfilling jobs is the path to happiness. Rather than focusing on the future goal of retirement, we should focus on financial independence. Freeing ourselves from both the need to work for money and the artificial construct of what retirement is or should allow us to lead more impactful and rewarding lives than we previously realised were possible.

Technological advancements which were expected to encourage and cultivate creative thinking have resulted in corroding creativity and innovation. People have less time to introspect on anything as we become controlled by a need to act, be online, robotically always reviewing. Multi-tasking stimulates internal chaos and fragmented concentration. The obligation to be efficient and instantaneous leads to a dumbing down of information intake so that people become scanners and "decoders" of information, drifting horizontally across the screen to pick up bytes, rather than delving towards a more profound opinion.

The modern generation is developing with addictive personal tension and prolonged anxiety as common. Our devotion of busyness requires that we take on more than we can suitably cope with; it overlooks or contradicts our actual frailty – and urges us to neglect or deny it too – until we have a collapse and want to lock ourselves, smash our phones, lie on the floor and sob.  When we can't go any quicker and can't relax, it will be a troublesome way to pick up the developmental bits we've dropped in our erratic rush for growth. The most valuable mantra in these inconstant conditions is just to remember to breathe. One of the simplest ways to sustain your tranquil, the natural side is learning to breathe more fully and in a slower, more comfortable fashion that calms us and allows for relaxation and recuperation.

"Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor."

-Abhinav Sardesai