Why Slow Living is Better than Fast Living!
The principle of slow living is one that we could all benefit from. In this rushed society, learn to step off the treadmill. Turn off the noise, TV, mass media, news and (sometimes noisy other people!). And go off to slow down life to a pace that suits you, now and then.
How to Be Busy: Unhurried Living for Chaotic Lifestyles shows how to find calm during seasons when you simply can’t be busy. Clear some space that goes beyond decluttering. Sometimes you have to be busy if you have those to care for or jobs to work.
Learn how to be busy but slowly. Learn how to eliminate digital distractions and find tough-love tips for unhurrying your busy days, with end-of-chapter tips on how to be busy well.
Floating Home: Lessons from a Life Less Ordinary
Floating Home is a book to ask if you are living with purpose and what makes you truly happy? Do you want to make a change in your life? If you do, this book likely can inspire.
After the devastating loss of his father, the author made a choice to hitchhike across 26 countries over five years, meeting fascinating people along the way, and experiencing life-changing moments, before taking to the waterways on his beloved (and temperamental) narrowboat, The Raman Rose.
In this book, Adam explores with wisdom and humour what his adventures taught him. From the importance of human connection and community, to achieving peace and the transformative power of compassion. In doing so, he gently guides readers to think outside the norm, and begin building a life on their own terms.
This book invites you to pause, pay attention and reconnect with what matters most. A gentle but grounded reflection on what it means to live well. Soulful, sincere and full of quiet truths. Joshua Fletcher
About the Author
Adam Lind is a charismatic and wise soul, who advocates with living for a purpose. Having used his own challenges to excel his personal life and career, he enjoys engaging with like-minded souls, who enjoy soaking up his passion to live a life of meaning.
Core Principles of Slow Living
- Mindfulness: Being present in each moment reduces stress and increases awareness.
- Sustainability: Choosing to consume and live in ways that are environmentally conscious.
- Intentionality: Making deliberate choices that focus on quality, not quantity.
Dutch People (masters of ‘doing nothing!’)
Niksen is the Dutch concept of ‘doing nothing’. This is a very interesting concept, because we learn that Dutch children (the happiest in the world) don’t do homework!
They also are pretty much given their own freedom, with parents not thinking there’s a child attacker on every street. Families don’t use smartphones or tablets when in a room together, there’s a lot we can learn from them.
So many people these days exhaust themselves, by doing something. Obviously doing something is good when you should be doing something (paramedics and even growing vegetables). But don’t do something, when you should be doing nothing!
This way of living is an antidote to the modern world, filled with what the late anarchist lecturer called Bullshit Jobs (a book for anyone whose heart sinks at the sight of a whiteboard, or believes that ‘workshops’ should only be for making things). You know these type of jobs – ones that endure simply because they help powerful people – lobbyists, telemarketers, bailiffs etc.
A Man Who Does Nothing – for a Living!
Rental Person Who Does Nothing is a fascinating book. The true story of a man in Japan who literally rents himself out to ‘do nothing’ for most of the time.
Services he offers are for things that actually matter: he goes to restaurants with people who don’t want to eat alone, is the other player in a board game or keeps a space in the park for someone to come view the cherry blossom.
Shoji (a Japanese earthquake expert) started his own ‘job’ to offer services for the lonely and socially anxious, after a boss told him that he contributed nothing, and it made no difference whether he showed up to work or not.
So he wondered if a person who ‘does nothing’ could still have a place in the world. With one tweet, his Rental Person service was born.
He now rents himself out for useful services, to help others. This can be listening to a secret that someone needs to reveal, ‘testing’ how it would be to have someone live with you, or even wave goodbye if you leave a train station for a long journey.
The rest of the time – he does nothing!
Reawakening Wonder in an Exhausted Age
Enchantment: Reawakening Wonder in an Exhausted Age by a Kent-based writer who lives by the sea, seeks to unravel the threads, of a life wound too tightly.
Feeling bone-tired, anxious and overwhelmed by the rolling news, could there be another, more meaningful way to live, more grounded in the places beneath our feet?
One that enables us to feel more connected, more rested and at east, even as seismic changes unfold on the planet.
Craving a different path, Katherine May explores the restorative properties of the natural world, and begins to rekindle her sense of wonder.
This is a journey that takes her from sacred wells to wild moors, from cradling seas to starfalls. Through it all, she finds nourishment and a more hopeful relationship, to the world around her.
Katherine May is a renowned writer and speaker, whose work touches on nature, slow living and spiritualty. She is author of the popular Substack newsletter The Clearing. She lives by the sea in Kent, and loves walking, sea-swimming and cooking feasts.
One Man Goes on Safari (in his garden!)
The Year of Sitting Dangerously is the story by Simon Barnes, whose trip to a Zambian safari was put on hold, due to the pandemic.
So instead he walked to a folding chair at the bottom of his garden, and sat down. His plan is to sit in that same spot each day for a year to see (and hear) what happens all around him.
As he watches the world around him change each day, he begins to see his surroundings in a new way. And by restricting himself, he opens up new horizons and grows closer to a world he thought he knew well.
Simon Barnes is the writer of many books on nature and wildlife. He is a council member of World Land Trust and patron of Save the Rhino. Awarded the Rothschild Medal for services to conservation, he lives in Norfolk, where he manages several acres for wildlife.
