• Friday, March 29, 2024
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BusinessDay

Rethinking our priorities and the way we approach life

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I once read an article on the internet, ‘Slow down, you’re moving too fast!’ which made me reflect on our situation, Nigeria in particular and the African continent in general.

Many feel today that the best part of the dry season is too slow and full of frustrating days, due to the heat wave, and as such can do anything to get temporal relief. But majority have not realised that being in a hurry always in life has short-changed many.

Although the situation is the same all over the world today, there is need to know that our society cannot really cope with the side effects of this phenomenon (when things move too fast). The 6 million advocates of the Slow Movement in the West feel there is a lot to be said for slowing your pace all year long.

The group points to our increasing “time poverty” and explains, “We are engaged in constant fast-forward motion whereby we are often over-scheduled, stressed and rushing towards the next task. This rushing is not restricted to our work environment. We rush our food, our family time and even our recreation.”

In an article Jane Gallagher in the Daily Post, ‘Slow Down and Save Society,’ notes that the movement, which has its roots in the Slow Food campaign in Italy, proposes consciously seizing control of time rather than being dictated to by it, and finding a balance between using time-saving technology and taking the time to enjoy a walk or a meal with others.

In another article by Carl Honore, author of ‘In Praise of Slow,’ “Everything we do is filtered through our obsession with time and, particularly, with not wasting it – including vacations.”

In The Daily Mail write-up, ‘Why Are We So in Thrall to Time?’ Honore advocates reviving “the art of doing nothing,” – something you might try over the upcoming long vacation (let’s liken it to our raining season).

Then when you return to your everyday life, take the quiz in Octavius Black’s Daily Mail article “It’s Slow Time’ to determine whether you’re a ‘rushaholic.’ If you fit the profile, then try Black’s five practical tips for slowing down: “Take pleasure. Let others rush in. Listen longer. Set an alarm. Be a time dove.”

This way, we will be able to minimise our hasty way of going through life. Often, we have missed the good things of life by being in a hurry. Most often also, we have missed critical information because of our concentration on wanting to do too many things at a very short time. We rush through all and end up not doing any well; as such, we let important facts get lost.

All we need to know now is to discover the common mistakes made by many researchers, and what you can do to avoid them. As the African adage says, “Slow and steady, wins the race;” sometimes, slow and steady really does pay off.

It is what we should imbibe to live longer. Doing a quick study is sometimes considered an advantage in life, including many areas of formal learning. But sometimes, fast work is not necessary or even wanted. Learn how to separate the times when there is a need for speed from those when it is better to take it pretty slowly.

Sometimes, we have this feeling of wanting everything to just suddenly stop because we want to get off when we are over burdened, which has led to a lot of stress, and stress is leading to unprecedented health problems all over the world. Do you really have reasons to slow down now?

Have you ever asked yourself some basic questions, such as, why is this happening, what is wrong, and what are we searching for?

The one thing that is common to all these drifts is connection. We are searching for connection. We want connection to people – ourselves, our family, our community, our friends, – to choose food, to choose places, and to choose life. We want connection to all that it means to live – we want to live a connected life. In Africa, this desire for connectedness is not new.

Traditionally, our lives are connected, as most African traditions still have these connections. Cultures have connection; people are connected to their culture, to people, to places and to their lives.

READ ALSO: Nwassa has potential to become one-stop-shop for African agribusiness – Mmobuosi

Not so long ago the extended family system was a real live entity, with the extended family often living under the same roof. Children grew up knowing their cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and other relatives. These children felt connected. Not too long ago, people were connected to their food.

Most people grew their own gardens with fresh vegetables and some fruits. Today, we are all in a hurry to get what we think is better than living a slow and fulfilled life than the illusion most of us pursue everyday. Our fast-paced life has weakened these connections.

Technological advances mean that the work we do is different from work in the past and it is less connected to living and life than it has been in the past. Technological advances have resulted in labour-saving devices for the home, a fact no one can doubt.

Who would complain about vacuum cleaner, electric stove, hot water system, flush toilet, or the bread maker, but have these technologies really given us more time to enjoy life, as was their claim? Instead, we have used this time to become even busier. We are engaged in constant fast-forward motion whereby we are often over-scheduled, stressed and rushing towards the next task.

Recognising the disconnection and pace of our life as an unwanted state of affairs is an important first step in re-establishing the connections and slowing the pace. What we all want to know is how do we reconnect, how do we live slowly, while at the same time meeting our most important responsibilities?

We are often unaware of just what it is that is not right, we just know that something is not right. Don’t you think it is time to rethink priorities? We recognise that a habit has been formed through the years; changing it now may be something that is not easy to do. Perhaps, the hardest thing to do is to change our attitude and mind-set.

We have to rethink our priorities and rethink the way we approach life and all things in it. Some of us may take the step of downshifting. Down-shifters are a fast-growing movement of people who choose voluntary simplicity in all aspects of life.

They go beyond materialism – beyond the fast life. They downshift to slow connected life. Due to this drift, many family ties and societal values have been eroded, the supposed custodians know something is wrong but many cannot pinpoint where they have missed it.

OSA VICTOR OBAYAGBONA