Instant gratification doesn’t just come with watching the latest TikTok video, or running through a fast food drive through to grab dinner. It covers almost every aspect of our lives from 2-day shipping, to binge watching tv shows, to having our groceries delivered to us. It’s no wonder that living in the slow lane is so hard for us all when our society is built in the fast lane.
As I’ve tended to my garden this summer I’ve learned a lot. The biggest lesson is that it’s not easy. There are days I don’t have time to water plants or weed the garden, and bad things happen. There are days when I have no idea why a plant is not striving and all I want to do is drown it in water and have it pop up the next day happy as a clam. But it’s not a clam (Nor do I know if clams are really that happy). It takes time. It takes love. It takes a lot of deep breaths.
My favorite book, Braiding Sweetgrass, says it best “Not everything was made to be convenient.”
Sit with that one a minute.
Life wasn’t made to be easy, but it can be oh so good. My garden is not easy. It’s harder than I imagined, so much so I’m rethinking this idea of owning a ton of land someday. On the other hand, my garden has done so much healing. When I’m anxious, worried, or even just bored, I go out to be with her. Walking along the path to look at my sprouts or check in on the flowers I planted and see if I can figure out what they need.
While having dinner made for you at a restaurant or fast food drive through is necessary sometimes, getting your hands in the ingredients and spending some time away from your phone or the tv is a great break and a healing practice. Driving to the park saves time but walking to the part allows you a chance to say hi to neighbors and see what’s going on in your community.
Our entire society is built upon the idea of convenience, but what they’ve conveniently left out, is how much you lose by saving a little time. Quality, nourishment, relationships, they all are lost when the goal is simply to save time.
What if instead of time being the soul focus of our lives we went back to nourishment? We focused on our needs, we slowed down and reprioritized, we sat with our feet in the grass and just noticed the world around us?
Ironically, you get back so much time when you choose to slow down. But that time is much richer, it’s filled with more life.
So while convenient might be easy, slow is oh so good. Like a fresh baked cookie that only your grandmother could have made, kind of good.
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