The Slow Art of Living
Sometimes I wonder if the greatest curse of human life is the way we rush through it. Everything else on this earth lives at its own gentle pace. Nothing in nature hurries, yet everything happens perfectly on time. Buds take days to open. Rivers travel miles to meet the sea, carving rocks slowly, shaping hard stones into smooth pebbles over years. The sky changes its colors from dawn to dusk in its own rhythm. Trees stretch their roots deep into the soil, growing quietly and patiently. Even the mountains take centuries to form and never once try to hurry their becoming. Birds leave their nests each morning, not to compete, but to simply live another day. The rain falls when it must, not earlier or later. The sea breathes in and out without pause. The clouds drift freely, carrying stories from faraway lands. Nothing forces its way forward. But we humans are always in a hurry. From the moment we are born, we are taught to move faster. We rush to grow up, to finish school, to enter colleg...