Something about going home for the holidays this year felt different — not in a bad way, just different. I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out what exactly this new feeling was. All I can say is that this Christmas was underlined by this sometimes-wonderful, sometimes-uncomfortable emotion — the acute awareness of time passing. I’m not sure if that feeling has a name, but I’ll try to explain what I mean.
When I was a kid, time felt almost static. I imagined the future as some far-off place I’d never reach. It seemed like the adults in our family would never age. Year after year, I thought, we’d get together for the same family traditions with the same people, at the same places, eating the same food. Of course, I knew that wasn’t true, but it was hard to imagine life changing so drastically. The years passed slowly back then, or at least that's how it feels looking back. I’ll never forget the days after I turned six — the year my parents threw me a bicycle-themed birthday party and all my cousins and friends came over for a ride around the neighborhood. I was so excited for my next birthday that I began counting the days until I turned seven. After a few days, I felt so frustrated thinking about how absurdly far away it felt — how every day seemed like its own year.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been away from home for so long, or maybe it’s just what happens at my age, but this Christmas I felt the stretching and expanding of time in all directions more intensely than ever. My cousins looked noticeably older against the more youthful portraits I had imprinted in my mind from the last time I saw them. My uncles, and aunts, and grandparents were no longer infallible, larger-than-life figures of authority. This year, they were just people — humans with flaws, and wrinkles, and scars, and political opinions. Our family has drifted in so many different directions in the last few years — boyfriends, grandkids, colleges, and commitments pulling everyone to different corners of the country. This year, the bonds that held us together for so many years felt more fragile. The strangest part of all, was how quickly everything seemed to change.
Do you feel it too? How quickly time is passing? Sometimes I feel like I’m on a train that’s constantly picking up speed — like the days are flying by across the window, blurry and barely discernible. Then the train stops at the end of the year, and I step out and look around. Suddenly, everything is completely different.
All this may sound depressing, but it’s not meant to be. This sudden realization that the people I love are getting old and traditions are changing and time is really passing, hit me hard. And even though it stings a bit, this Christmas made me reflect on the past few years and realize it’s time to get off the train. For the first time in a long time, I am starting to live slowly. And the slower I go, the sweeter each moment I get to spend with the people I love.
Living slowly is easier said than done, of course. Slowing down is against my nature. I’m an ambitious person and for as long as I can remember, I’ve been jumping from one thing to the next — always searching for another goal, another milestone, another distant point in the future to set my sights on. This restlessness has led me all over the world in pursuit of my goals, but it has also pulled me out of the present so much that I perpetually dwelled in the future. Every minute, every hour, every day raced by, arching toward some goal I set for myself. When I get there I will slow down, I told myself. Then I got there and shifted my attention to some shiny new objective that once again pulled me out of the present. Was I really living? Or just watching the days fly by through the window of the train.
And it wasn’t just big milestones or lofty goals that kept me from slowing down. It was tiny things, too. An assignment at work, an email I hadn't responded to, a workout I had skipped — all these things preoccupied my mind and pulled me further and further into the future. It pains me to think about how little of my life I was actually fully present for. How many magical moments did I let slip by? I felt like I suddenly woke up this year and tried to recall the blurry images I had seen out the window of the train all these years.
I wrote a poem this summer that ended with the line, “the hands of the clock are my own”. What I meant is that the passage of time is my perception. I get to decide how quickly the clock’s hands spin. The speed of the train, and whether or not I’m even on the train, is entirely up to me. I may not be able to fully grasp the magnitude of every single moment, but I can slow down as much as I can and try.
When I wrote that poem, I was starting to realize I could control how quickly time passed. And now, more than ever, I truly believe it. Time passes as quickly or as slowly as I chose to see it. I can honestly say in the last four months I’ve lived slower and deeper than I ever have. But it hasn’t been by accident. I’ve made a lot of changes in my life so that I can lead — as one of my favorite writers Susan Cain calls it — a life of quiet creativity.
Having said that, I’m going to share a few guiding principles I’ve set for myself that have meant the difference between flying downhill on the train of delusion or simply walking around and enjoying life at my own pace.
The first is the most important. The mornings and the evenings are sacred — I mean really sacred, like time for praying and connecting with a higher power. When I was a kid I used to pray much more, but for a long time I got into the bad habit of just jumping straight into the day without any sort of spiritual connection. Lately, I’ve been trying to pray in the mornings again. The glass door to the balcony of my apartment faces almost directly East and every morning the sunlight streaks into the window. When Noa lights incense, the streaks of sunlight dance with the smoke and become vibrant beams that wrap around us as we make coffee. It’s pretty hard not to feel connected to some form of divine energy when you’re waking up in a golden room with hot coffee.
Similarly, I try to set an intention for the next morning before I go to bed. I try to read at least a little in bed and then before I fall asleep I think of the first thing I am going to do the next day, especially if I plan to go to the gym, pray, or write. I am not sure why but this little intention makes it easier to follow through with my plans rather than hit snooze. The golden rule of keeping the mornings and evenings sacred is to limit distractions — which brings me to the next principle.
I’ve been completely off social media for several months now, and the longer I’m away from it the more I am absolutely certain I am never going back. I am a firm believer that social media in all its forms is poisonous. Yes, it has many benefits, but these days, the negative effects outweigh the positive by a million to one. I could spend days ranting about the dangers and downsides of social media, but I’m not an expert. I just know it’s bad for me. Having said all that, I think limiting phone use as much as possible throughout the day — and especially first thing in the morning and before going to sleep — is crucial to staying off the train. Notifications and news feeds throw you headfirst into the caboose.
These two principles have made an immense difference for me, as well as one other habit: writing everyday. In the first chapter of her famous workbook, The Artist’s Way, Author Julia Cameron shares an exercise that helps artists live spiritually connected, creative lives. It’s extremely simple: everyday, wake up and before you do anything else write three pages in a notebook by hand without stopping. This exercise has many purposes, but above all, it has helped me explore my thoughts on paper and connect with my creative spirit (sounds corny but I can’t find another way to say that). Sometimes I write journal entries recounting dreams I had the night before or emotions I wanted to explore. Other times, I write random incoherent short stories about whatever nonsense comes to mind. Other times, I write prayers, and more often than not, I write the phrase “F— this, I do not want to be writing right now” or “It’s too early for this shit.” Whether I like it or not, this exercise helps me lay down a spiritual foundation on which I can build the rest of the day.
Aligning with these principles has helped me slow my perception of time, but only if I am rooted in a deep sense of gratitude. Praying every morning and writing three pages a day means nothing if you are consistently unhappy with the present moment. This was one of the biggest reasons I lived so many years so frantically, so on edge … so stuck on the train. I believed the big lie that our society tells us — that there’s always something better. This year I decided not to buy into that myth anymore. Everything I have in this moment, everything I am in this moment, is enough. There is nothing I need to buy, nothing I need to achieve, nobody I need to become to live my purpose in this moment. I am what I am — alive and longing to grow and love and connect and learn — and that is enough.
Once we accept that life is too fragile and too short to spend all of it living in the future, everything we spent so much time thinking about suddenly becomes meaningless. Ambition and goals and dedication to our purpose are vital to our well-being but they can quickly become diseases if we let them steal us from the present. We can work hard and move towards our purpose without being passengers on the train watching our lives quickly flash across the window.
So please, find a way to live slowly. The hands of the clock are your own.