This Is Why I Want To Learn To Take Things Slowly In Life

Daniella Urdinlaiz

Did you ever question how you’re moving on with your life? Ever wondered if you’re doing it right or wrong? Wondered if you’re asking for more things than you should or achieving things way less than what you’re supposed to be achieving by now? Ever wondered if your speed is fast enough for this short life or if it’s slow enough to realize its beauty? I know I did. I wondered and kept asking myself in an attempt to find an answer which I guess I managed to get.

My answer was actually nothing but another question. The question was this, what is it exactly that I want from this life. I mean what are my aspirations. To that I answered that my aspirations despite their variety can be understood with one word, life. I want to live. That is what I aspire to do, to live my life to the fullest. To do things I want. Things I choose for myself and that was the answer.

I want to learn to take things slowly if that’s the only way they’d come. You see, if you really want to enjoy something it has to take its time. You have to contemplate it, feel its presence a little bit longer, close your eyes for a second and try to notice how its existence is like in the air, experience life how it has changed even if for this temporary while when that new thing was there.

I want to learn that I can wait for things I want to come true and that the only way certain things are achieved is by waiting, waiting until their time is here. Things like love, like success, like self-realization. Things like finishing a certain major, learning a new language and traveling the world. Things like the end of a treatment or the beginning of a new journey. Things that have to take their time to reach you or for you reach them. Those are what I’m trying to learn to wait for.

I want to learn that I can be patient. That for the things you really love and really want, you can tolerate minutes, days and even years so that when they come they’re all there. So that when you live through them you’d be embracing their finest bit. So that when you find love you’d know how it’s like and not just how its traces feel. So that when you succeed after those sleepless nights, sleeping would taste like something. So that when you finally get to see the world after you have waited for that a long time, a peck of dust in the space around you would look like a miracle.

I want to learn to take things slowly though I am always afraid this would mean I’d be too slow or won’t achieve much in life. However, the truth is taking things slowly doesn’t mean that you should be lazy, it just means that if something takes time to grow you have to give it that time. That though you are so ahead of yourself, some things will have to lag you for a while and what would matter is that you don’t give up on them during that time. That when you feel sad, you gotta let sadness take its time just the way you have to acknowledge your happiness while it’s around. That when they say there’s no elevator to success and you have to take the stairs they probably know what they mean and you probably have to believe them.

I want to learn to take things slowly and to let them flow the way they’re meant to. I want to learn to feel with all my heart. I know it will take time but it is time I am fine with giving because I know it’ll feel differently then.

I want to learn to take things slowly even if it meant I’ll have to long for them, that longing would be part of the slow process. Because when you think about it, ain’t the best things we ever had were the ones that came after so much longing. So when my waiter is a little late but he finally brings me my coffee, I could enjoy it till the last drop. When I get to meet the love of my life, the universe would finally make sense.

When I accept failure the way I accept success, it’ll make me understand what touches my heart the most, it’ll make me realize how much I should work for success.

I want to learn to take things slowly because rushing things isn’t any good. I know that I am afraid that life won’t be long enough for all that which I wish to do but maybe it’s not always about doing everything as much as it’s about doing things you want the right way, feeling them completely. Maybe that’s what perfection really is. To remember the small things you’ve done because you felt them immensely no matter how minor they have been.

Still, people are afraid to feel that much. They are afraid to take things slowly because that means they’d take much of their minds and hearts. They’d then be so hard to get over. What if you feel your loss so much that you get trapped in it, that you think there’s nothing beyond it. What if you love so much and your love doesn’t reciprocate, will you break then with all the feelings you’ve kept for this love. I know from where this is coming. I’ve had those fears myself but I started to think differently.

Maybe by the end of the day what would really matter is that you’ve been true to yourself. That you’ve done and said what you felt. That you took things slowly because you were trying your best to come to your own expectations and not those of anybody else. That you believed that what is meant to happen will find its way but that you can still hope for it and keep an eye for it. Maybe it’s about knowing that you were feeling with all your heart, living on the edges, taking all the risks possible of falling and being shattered because you know that nothing feels like an authentic real life.

Maybe by the end of the day it’s what your heart has felt that really matters. So maybe, for the sake of your heart to read slowly that you start believing you’re one of the characters in a novel. To eat slowly that you think of the stories behind the ones who have cooked your meal. You learn to kiss slowly that if your lover is a book you’d feel like you’re reading one more page with every passing second. To look around you as slowly as you could that you see the beauty and the ugliness alike, that you know life can’t be but with both. And to live at your own pace without rushing things if rushing won’t get you what you really want from life. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

An Egyptian medical student who believes that words can heal a wound and that good food and good books can fix two thirds of our problems.

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