7:00 am the alarm goes off. 8:00 am take the children to the nursery. 8:30 am meeting with the boss. 10:00 am delivery of the project to the client. 11:30 am meeting with the Japanese… It is time for you to stop for a moment, look at yourself in the mirror and reflect on your life. Where am I walking towards? Does it make sense to lead such a busy life? Since when do you not treat yourself to an afternoon to do what you like the most?
- The here and now, the immediacy, the rush, the competitiveness or the maximum benefit, are some characteristics of the cardiac society in which we live and where we never have time for anything. It is time to give another approach to our philosophy of life, return to the values that make us feel good, the company of our family, friends or acquaintances, time for myself and for others, in short, living today without planning what will happen tomorrow.
- Some international companies and many people have signed up to live under the ‘slow down’ concept, a philosophy that is based on things done well but slowly, attending to all the details and leaving tension and stress aside, which so many psychological and physical problems it is causing to the current population. This attitude, far from what it may seem, favors a better quality of life and increases the productivity, quality and perfection of the work done.
Slowdown vs. fast life
- The ‘slow down’ culture was born in Rome in 1986 as a claim against the opening of a fast food restaurant in the Spanish Steps. The basis of this revolt was a total opposition to the Fast life, to the rush, to doing it now, to the first me, and everything that this entails in the personal, economic, political, environmental and social spheres.
- This philosophy was passed to all areas of daily life and since then, there have been many followers of this movement, but there is still a long way to go. The day to day continues to be dominated by individualism, selfishness and the ambition for power. The obsession with time is what governs the routine and what stifles good ideas, forces us to live each day without hardly noticing the present, thinking about the future and wishing for a better time to come.
- At the labor level, the ‘slow down’ theory is committed to creating a less repressive environment, encouraging collaboration and teamwork, betting on doing what one knows how to do and what one likes. In reality, this would be the best option to be more efficient, while achieving greater motivation and involvement of employees in the corporate culture.
- Adopt an active attitude, acting at the right pace and always keeping in mind that the important thing is to work to live and not live to work. By applying this maxim we will feel the satisfaction of a job well done, and what is more important, the satisfaction of having time for ourselves and ours. In short, living in such a way that when the years go by we do not have the feeling of having wasted our time.