Slowing Down to the Speed of Life
Book Review by: Shirin Tabibzadeh
This is a book about slowing down and learning to live in the moment. To achieve this you
don't need to change your lifestyle. You don't have to move to the country or to a small
town in another state. You don't have to resign from your job or change your career. You
don't have to stop watching Television, avoid traffic jams, cancel all social engagements,
or travel to India. This book does not even ask you to take a pill or quit drinking
coffee!
Most people who try to slow down put the proverbial cart before the horse. They make
dramatic, often costly changes in their lifestyle, only to encounter two disappointing
results:
First, they don't enjoy the changes they make. People who are temperamentally used to a fast-paced life quickly discover that a slower-paced life in the country all but drives them crazy.
Second, lifestyle changes alone, rarely make a real difference. You can
change the externals of your life in a radically different way, but you always take your thinking
with you. If you are a hurried, rushed person in the city, you will also be a hurried,
rushed person in the country.
In this book, you will learn to slow down your life from the inside out. This change will
result from a wiser way of being in the world, not from superficially reorganizing the
external of your life. You will discover how your quality of life is created
from within rather
than imposed upon you by outside forces.
The approach to slowing down that you will encounter in this book is based on a set of
principles known as Psychology of Mind(POM)- It is geared toward freeing you from the pace
of our hurried world. Richard Carlson, the author of the book says "before we
embraced these principles, we were no different from anyone else. Our inner worlds were
full of anxiety, worry, pressure, and a feeling of being overwhelmed by life's day-to-day
problems. We had stomachaches, headaches, backaches, and other symptoms typical of our
stress-filled world". As practitioner of this psychology," the author
continues to say "we have spent many years teaching the principles we will describe in
this book. As a result, many people around the world have learned to take control of their
lives instead of feeling victimized by them. If you approach reading this book with an
open mind, you too will learn:
-To slow down and enjoy each moment.
-That contrary to conventional wisdom, your productivity will actually increase when you
slow down to the speed of life.
-That other people's habits, attitudes, behaviors, and moods don't have to affect the
quality of your day or the speed of your life.
-That even life's most serious circumstances and events don't have to be taken so
seriously.
-That the best preparation for the future is to live your life fully in the present.
-That, finally, you can be happy.
The best way to read this book is to approach it with an open mind. See whether the ideas
resonate with your own common sense on an intuitive, non-analytical level, but try to avoid
fitting the information into something you already intellectually believe. If you can
digest and take to heart the information in this book, you will feel yourself slowing down
right away. Every little effort will be involved.
In this book they don't provide you with lists of things to do, exercises to practice, or
suggestions on how to cut back your schedule of manage your time more efficiently.
As you read through , you will begin to see the compelling logic or its message
and the obvious truth of its principles for your life. Take your time to digest each
moment as you read, and you will discover that never again does life have to be one big
emergency.