Four months into a global pandemic, I have heard many people say that this crisis has allowed them to slow down the speed of their lives. Parents who were inevitably laid off from work and collecting unemployment are now making puzzles with their kids instead of hectically preparing their lunches for school, rushing them to soccer practice or a play date.
With everything deemed normal about life – occupations, extracurriculars, baby showers and 50th birthday parties – coming to a halt, as a nation, we collectively are unsure of how to feel without the bustling streets and social gatherings. How does a nation that is built on fast-paced work and lightning speed cars supposed to just slow down?
The home is not just the home anymore. It is the chaotic fusion of a makeshift work space and what is left of a personal life. Being forced into a virtual work landscape that broke down the barrier between personal and professional was a hard pill every adult in this country had to swallow.
We all arguably had to trade in our mental health for physical health. There are two ways to look at it – we are in a constant state of fear and shock by sweeping death and tanked businesses. But we also have extra time usually spent in traffic to perhaps meditate and face our emotions and be still with them. It is so comfortable and easy to wiz through life trying to break records of speed rather than sit and digest and let the world take control. The latter is much healthier for slowing down our racing thoughts and enacting a sense of personal humility. It is quite obviously a trying time for the vast majority of the world, but can we really say we are worse off coming down from the high of a toxic, overworked society?
Personally, this pandemic has made me face a lot of my habits I used to ignore and accept, based on societal standards of go, go, go and now, now, now. This is not to put the whole blame of my toxic tendencies on the world around me, but you get the saying, “You are your environment.”
For example, it is almost every day I get an iced coffee from Dunkin’. I know – total New Englander/ basic girl. In all seriousness, I was intoxicated by, caffeine of course, but also the cultural value that is placed on speed. And naturally, coffee can help with this factor. That’s why coffee shops are, despite COVID-19, booming businesses and we say things like “I haven’t had my coffee yet.”
We see it in job postings that ask for those who can thrive in a fast-paced work environment. We are a people who (especially in Massachusetts) will impatiently beep at someone the split second after a light turns green or storm past someone who is taking too long in an aisle instead of simply waiting a few minutes for your own turn. I certainly am guilty of both. It is easy to be speeding on Route 20 – a main road that is notorious for speeding despite the enforced limit of 40 mph.
If you are able to work well under time constraints, all the power to you, since timed tests always gave me induced panic attacks while I stared at the clock. But how quickly we can get something done shouldn’t always be prioritized. Of course, there are deadlines that can make us eager to jump to the next thing and be more efficient. I know you’re probably thinking the more things that get done, the better. And that can be true. But if we are rushing through life, when are we supposed to savor it? When are we socially allowed to be a human being rather than robots being rated by production per second? Perhaps we can be a kinder, more understanding people rather than a nation who just tries to do when sometimes we need that time to simply be. You know what they say in writing, revision is the most important part of story making. We must sit back and review ourselves, to soak up both gleeful moments and harsh truths like this one.
The last thing I’m trying to enact is a generalization, but it is quite apparent that America’s obsession with results and quickness needs to take a metaphorical chill pill. And with a booming health crisis, we finally have the chance.
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