Why I’m Living the Slow & Strenuous Life

Her last words are what sent me on this journey.

I was already three months into the most difficult, challenging, exhausting period of my life when I received yet another blow. While standing at my kitchen counter in the middle of December, my phone rang. As soon as I saw who it was, my heart dropped. My parents were in Virginia, and I knew that a phone call would not mean good news. Reluctantly, and fearing the worst, I answered my dad’s call. Unfortunately he confirmed my fears.

Nanny had fallen and went to the hospital. While there, she caught COVID and developed a terminal infection. She was never going to leave. This was the end.

Nanny was an incredible grandmother. The matriarch, rock, and heart of our entire family. She was the strongest person I knew. She worked tirelessly to create a better life for our family. She vigorously defended the dignity of complete strangers. Sure, in her later years she drove the wrong way down a “One Way” street after ignoring our family’s request to stop driving and she refused to use her walker out of pride (resulting in multiple falls and fractures). But she was Nanny. Indestructible. Endlessly enduring. Undefeated. And so, as I waited for my Dad to pick up the phone for one final FaceTime with her, I shuddered at the thought of seeing her almost lifeless in what would become her deathbed. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to handle it.

If I ever needed to feel better about myself, the easiest and quickest way was to talk to Nanny. As a kid, when mom and dad were (rightfully) punishing me for something I’d done wrong, a quick call to Nanny would lead to her scolding my parents for being too harsh on me and trying to get me out of trouble. When her grandchildren ever felt insecure, uncertain, or that they were underachieving in life, Nanny would always remind us that we were worthy of love and affection just by being ourselves. She loved all of us wholeheartedly and unconditionally; love that we all strive for in our lives but rarely receive, let alone give to others.

It’s not often that you know you’re about to have your last conversation with someone. A true chance to say goodbye, share what they meant to you, lay it all out on the table. Most of the time death just happens suddenly without giving us the chance to properly bid farewell. But here I was, given the opportunity to confront death and speak to Nanny one last time. I couldn’t mess this one up. Not after I was forced to plan for an even more devastating conversation that, mercifully, never happened.

##

Just a few months earlier I thought I’d be saying goodbye to the love of my life.

Gabby and I met in graduate school, just after I had returned from a bit of world travel. Without that experience under my belt I would have been too insecure to be in a relationship. But when Gabby walked into the restaurant (twenty-three minutes late - to the point where the waitstaff was giving me looks of pity) it felt like I was meeting with an old friend, even though we had just met. We talked for hours at that table, and I knew I had to nail down a second date before we left. That initial conversation started nine years ago and it hasn’t let up since. Together, we have built an incredible life full of adventure, unconditional love, and endless support for one another through our most difficult times in life. Without her, I have absolutely no idea where I would be in life. Although I’m sure I’d dress far less stylishly and would completely neglect my skincare.

I was never more sure of anything in life than when I dropped to one knee and asked Gab to marry me. Like all great marriages, ours was built on lies. On the morning of the proposal I kept my normal routine and got ready for work. When Gab left before me, blissfully unaware of my scheme, I kissed her goodbye, walked upstairs, and changed right back into pajamas. Without her knowing I had taken the day off to prepare for my proposal, throughout the day I sent texts about my students misbehaving, what we were talking about at lunch, and how my workday was going - all lies I devised while setting up a timeline of photos in our apartment that would surprise her when she came home. She was sure that I couldn’t surprise her with a proposal. But when she came home that Friday to see dozens of photos on the wall leading to a video on my computer, and finishing with a request to turn around so she could see me on my knee, I had thoroughly shocked her. She cried (tears of joy, I think) and said yes. From there I took her to a surprise dinner where both our families were waiting at the restaurant. It was the perfect day for the perfect woman.

A year later we were in the depths of wedding planning, wondering if we’d even be able to pull the day off. Needing a little break from the stress, we decided to head downtown to explore a food festival. What better way to spend an afternoon than strolling around sampling food trucks? At the time, Gab had been dealing with some stomach discomfort for a few days. We didn’t think it was anything serious. She had been quite stressed with the wedding planning, and we assumed that the pain was either related to that or possibly some bad fish she may have eaten a few days prior. Without warning, while walking up a set of stairs, Gab collapsed in pain. She could barely move as she clutched her stomach and began breathing heavily. We ducked into a museum to shelter from the hoards people and the oncoming rain shower. While walking to the near our parked car she keeled over and crumpled into the closest seat she could find. It took almost half an hour just to get her up the rest of the steps and into the car parked right outside. Several hours later, at the emergency room, it was revealed that she had developed an extremely serious health condition that needed immediate attention. The fact that it wasn’t caught before was due to an inexplicable combination of incompetence and misinformed assumptions. She would be having a major and invasive surgery in two weeks. After the operation, there was no guarantee that she would be okay long-term. The diagnosis could potentially be terminal.

For those two weeks we managed as best we could as she existed in debilitating pain. The woman who was a constant source of sunshine, energy, and joy was suddenly bed-ridden and wincing in pain with every movement. 

I was scared.

I didn’t want to say it, to talk about it, but there was a real possibility that this was the beginning of the end. Until the operation and test results came back, all we could rely on for solace was the doctor’s assessment that he didn’t expect this to be a serious issue post-operation.

Expect.

Well, a lot of unexpected things happen every day. Why should I ever take solace in an expectation?

Finally the day of her operation came. I, my parents, and my soon-to-be in-laws paced around the hospital all morning waiting for a call from the surgeon. After a few hours that felt like days, my phone rang. The surgeon was on the other end. Her operation was successful, and we found out after 10 agonizing days that the results had come back in our favor: she was going to be okay. We both breathed a long, tearful sigh of relief. This wasn’t going to kill her. Not to say that the challenge was over: we were just beginning the long recovery where she had to essentially relearn how to stand, how to walk, and how to truly live once again.

With no family nearby, my job became to make sure Gab could survive each day of the recovery. Full-time caretaking while working a full-time job was stressful, to put it lightly. Each morning I arrived late to work as I needed to help her out of bed, support her to the couch, and set-up everything she could possibly need throughout the day within an arm’s reach. 

Most days this was all she needed and I could stay at work without too much distraction. But not always. One day, while grading essays at my desk, I got a text from Gab that read:

Um, my incision is squirting out blood. What should I do?

I burst into my principal’s office, told him a co-worker would be covering the start of my class and I’d be back in thirty minutes, then sped home to bandage her up. While tossing out the blood-soaked gauze, I took a deep breath and asked:

“You good?”

“I think so.”

“Okay, love you angel, bye.”

And out the door I went. Which was the last thing I wanted to do. I just wanted to be with her and take care of everything. But part of taking care of everything meant earning a paycheck. Which felt harder and harder by the day as my teaching suffered due to the physical and emotional exhaustion I was experiencing. No matter how I looked at it, I was failing at my job and failing at my caretaking.

##

Thankfully Gab felt a little better each day, and life got a little easier as a result. Eventually she was able to move on her own, prep her own food, and become more independent. Once she was officially healed and fully cleared by the doctor, our attention turned to happier matters: we had a solid two weeks to finish planning our wedding before the big day arrived.

Fun? Absolutely.

Stressful? You betcha.

Good stress is still stress.

The planning gave Gab an opportunity to move forward from her operation, to be active, to continue her healing. Decorations, food plans, seating charts - it all temporarily got our minds off the horror we had just been through. We didn’t have time to process what we just went through. There was a wedding to plan for over a hundred people.

The night before the wedding we were frantically putting together favors with my in-laws in conference room of a budget hotel. We were coming down to the wire, and I was doing my absolute best to make sure the day went exactly as Gabby had been dreaming of her entire life. Once the favors were done we gave a collective sigh of relief. All the preparation was officially done. The stressful part was over. All we had to do now was show up and enjoy the day.

Proclaiming victory, I left the conference room to go visit my family at the other hotel just across town to say hi, celebrate the day to come, and finally relax for a bit.

I never made it.

I don’t know if there’s ever a good time to get into your first car crash, but I’m sure the night before your wedding isn’t it.

My car was slammed into oncoming traffic by a driver who changed lanes without checking his blind spot. If he had, he would’ve seen me right next to him.

But hey, why not keep the crazy times rolling, right?

I was okay, mercifully, although my car was totaled. Thankfully I had 100 family members and friends in the area to help me get through the event without a car. My dad picked me up in the median, we moved the favors to Gabby’s cousin’s car, and my friend Jake agreed to be my chauffeur on the wedding day. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more grateful for the people in my life. Maybe the night before your wedding is actually the best time for your first car crash?

That night I couldn’t sleep. In addition to the pre-wedding jitters, I kept imagining what would have happened if a car came in the opposite direction. That could have been it. On the night before my wedding, it all could have been over. What a terrifying thought. But also, what a beautiful thing to still be there to experience the day.

Our wedding was absolutely perfect. Hands down the best day of my life. I’d do it again a million times and never get sick of it. We were surrounded by all of our loved ones, most of whom were crying tears of joy (myself included). A double rainbow broke out amongst the fall foliage while we were taking our photos after the ceremony. Our favorite music echoed into the night.

One of the highlights of the night was reconnecting with my best friend from childhood. Growing up, the two of us were inseparable. We were constantly roaming around the neighborhood, going on adventures, getting up to no good. Over the years we saw each other less frequently, getting together only when we both happened to be in town for the holidays. Since Gab and I moved I hadn’t seen him at all until he appeared on the patio of the venue when I walked outside to take pictures before the ceremony. I ran up for a hug and made sure to spend time throughout the night catching up with him. Just before he left, he mentioned that he had found an old picture of us at his parents’ house, taken when we were seven at a state fair.

“Isn’t it something? From those early days all the way to this. It all worked out, man. It all worked out”

Thanks to beautiful moments like this, our wedding was a reset. It felt like, after the dark times, we were finally getting back into the light.

That feeling continued when, after a couple years of searching and getting outrageously outbid, we finally had an offer accepted on a house. Once again, good stress is still stress. We scrimped together every penny we had to buy the home and make sure we could close the deal on time. We signed more papers than we ever had in our life, to the point where my signature devolved with each stroke. If we messed up we could lose our dream house. We stressed over inspections, savings balances, taxes, and final negotiations. While we were in the thick of the paperwork gauntlet, we decided to give ourselves a day-trip to Vermont to loosen up and relax a bit. A well-deserved getaway to escape the insanity. 

We never made it.

##

While driving on a beautiful country highway in the foothills of the Green Mountains, my phone rang. On the caller ID appeared the name of my friend Jared. He and I text frequently, but we rarely speak on the phone. When Jared calls, something is usually wrong. I put that thought aside and hoped that he had some good news to share. Maybe one of our friends was pregnant! Maybe he had started a new relationship he wanted to tell me about!

Unfortunately, Jared had the brutal job of informing me that my old friend committed suicide the night prior.

He was just at our wedding. We hugged. We reminisced on all the crazy things we did as kids: the adventures, the stupid games, the nights where we’d talk about what we wanted to do with our lives. He patted me on the shoulder. “It all worked out, man. It all worked out.” We lamented that we hadn’t stayed in touch as much as we would’ve liked. But hey, it happens. We’ll make plans in a few weeks. 

The opportunity never came. There were no signs. He just snapped, flipped a few tables, and grabbed his shotgun. A moment later, his existence was over.

I pulled over and broke down in tears while idling an RV dealer’s parking lot. Eventually I slipped into the passenger seat so Gab could drive home. We were speechless.

The shock was immense at his funeral. In moments of stories, overdue hellos, and occasional laughter, I forgot where I was at times. It would quiet down and I’d look up at the front of the room. I’d see the hat on his urn, my stomach would twist, and I would be snapped back into the reality of the situation. I’d remember where I was and why I was there. Tears fell in silence as I touched his urn for one final time. We would never go on another adventure together again.

The next day, at his parents’ house, his Mom came downstairs with a gift for me. Wrapped in tissue paper, she said she had recently found it while cleaning out some old boxes and wanted me to have it. In my hands, I felt the curved wooden frame hiding beneath the thin paper. Slowly, and with a few tears, I unwrapped that old photo of us from the state fair. We were so innocent then.

At our wedding he slipped out the door quietly, not wanting to make a scene. At one point I realized he had left and that I didn’t get to say a proper goodbye.

That’s okay. I’ll see him soon.

##

It was just a few weeks later, as we were days away from closing on the house, that I received the call about Nanny. I didn’t know how much more I could take. It was already the most strenuous time of my life, and this just added onto the pile. I knew I couldn’t be selfish and run away. I had to confront the situation. This wasn’t about me. None of the experiences of the previous three months were. I just happened to have to manage them as best I could.

On FaceTime, Nanny was as lucid as she had been in days. She remembered that Gab and I had just gotten married. She knew about the house. These moments were fleeting, and Gab and I felt lucky to be experiencing her at her best, such as it was. 

I told her how much I loved her, how much she meant to me, to all of us, and that we have her to thank for where we are. She looked into the camera, smiled, and with the little strength she had left spoke her final words to me:

“Oh sweetie. You have such a beautiful life. Enjoy every moment.”

The wisdom hit me like a ton of bricks.

It wasn’t just that those would be the last words Nanny, whom I adored, would speak to me.

It was that I wasn’t really following her advice.

Nanny had great excuses not to enjoy every moment of her life. She grew up in poverty with parents who were good people but weren’t ready to be parents. She had a difficult childhood. Moved around a lot. Took awhile to get her bearings. But she stayed strong, remained tough, and through the years built a storybook life. An amazing husband. Five kids. Upward economic mobility. She lived out the ever-fleeting American dream. She made reasons to enjoy every moment. She built her beautiful life from the ground up. And appreciated it deeply.

Up to that point, I had not been enjoying every moment of my life. To be completely honest, I didn’t even feel like I was really living it.

Nanny was tough as nails and lived through adversity. She put herself into strenuous situations that weren’t guaranteed to be successful. But through grit and belief, she made her visions a reality. To the end she maintained that toughness, that grit, that vision. 

But me? 

Not even close.

To say I was tough as nails, living through adversity, and challenging myself to grow and fulfill a difficult-to-achieve but fulfilling vision would be a vast overstatement.

And I don’t think I’m alone.

##

In my adult years I have slipped into a seductively comfortable life, as many of us have. And how could I not? Our society is surrounded with abundance. Endless food, entertainment, consumption of anything and everything all the time, all at our fingertips for our own personal pleasure. Everything is designed to be as convenient as possible. Using our evolutionary predisposition to get the most amount of resources with the least amount of energy, we can consume more than we’d ever need without so much as lifting a finger. I for one adore the fact that I can get fresh Chipotle delivered to my door while watching an endless stream of entertainment on my incredibly comfy couch. Shouldn’t this be heaven? Shouldn’t we all be stoked about how easy our lives have become?

Apparently not.

In spite of this tech-created luxury, we have less time, are less healthy, more anxious, and more depressed than ever. The average American is unhealthy, overweight, lonely, and unhappy. Living an average life has become actively dangerous to our well-being. In spite of all our “time-saving” technology, over 80% of Americans claim to be “too busy” and wish their schedules were lighter. Rates of anxiety and depression have been increasing steadily at a concerning rate, even as it becomes easier to cover our basic hierarchy of needs. In theory, with more time and less effort to complete our daily tasks, we should have more time to exercise and eat well, right? Yet over 40% of Americans are obese, and rates of heart disease and diabetes are increasing year-after-year. We’re the first generation to have a lower life expectancy than the previous one. The root cause of this trend, in my opinion, is simple. For years our society has been growing in two directions: faster and easier. No facet of society is untouched from this trend. The Internet has made everything faster and easier. But instead of using the extra time for leisure, we are expected to do more with the time that is saved. We pressure ourselves (or are pressured by societal trends) to cram as much as we can into our schedules in order to “be and do it all”. At the same time, we are consuming more than ever before, endlessly and forever, in hopes that the things we buy will make us happy and satisfied. And at great cost to ourselves and our planet. 

Buying is faster. Shipping is faster. Throwing stuff out is faster. Travel is faster. Posting is faster. Eating is faster. Dating is faster. And all of these, plus more, are easier than ever.

It used to be, if you wanted to travel across the continent, you’d have to walk for months on end, try not to get run over by a wagon or die of dysentery, lose half your family, and end up in a place where you build a house out of mud that very well could be destroyed in a rogue dust storm. Now, traveling across the country is outrageously simple: we just hop in a tube, eat some stale pretzels and drink flat sodas, watch a couple hundred short videos on our phone, complain about the Wi-Fi speed, and arrive at the other ocean just in time to grab some fast food to replenish from our “long, difficult journey” (where often our biggest problem was that we didn’t get there fast enough). A prime example of the speed and ease that has overtaken modern life.

In addition to the increasing pace of life itself, there’s inherent pressure to keep up with this unreasonable speed, too. Whether outward or unspoken, there is absolutely pressure to have what others have, do what others do, travel where others travel, and post what others post. It’s why trends exist. They always have, of course. But now instead of just keeping up with the people in our neighborhood, we feel a deep need to keep up not just with the Joneses in our neighborhood, but with the thousands of people we see online everyday. Even if it’s unconscious, that pressure is there. Better keep up, or get lost in the process. Gotta go faster. And to go that fast, things better be easy and frictionless.

If we as a society are not thriving in this environment then clearly this easy, convenient, frictionless existence has its flaws. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not creating the happy and fulfilling life that it had promised. To be fair, things are looking more and more like Wall-E everyday. And I’m pretty sure that movie was intended to be a warning, not a blueprint. The characters in that film had all the convenience and ease imaginable, and yet they were unhappy and unhealthy and unfulfilled. As we get closer to that becoming our reality, it’s essential that we look critically at where we’re headed and what it’s doing to us. Perhaps fulfillment lies somewhere outside an easy life of convenience. It’s entirely possible that it lies closer to its opposite: an intentionally strenuous life of meaning.

##

One of the mantras I return to often is a Zen proverb:

There are no cold spots in boiling water.

When water is boiling it is all hot. Bursting with energy. Reaching its potential. You can’t have boiling water that’s cold. It’s impossible.

So what about life? If we see our lives as a pot of water, what would it be like if we were always boiling? Living our fullest purpose? Ready at all times to experience life to its fullest instead of lying cold and unheated on the back of the stove? Personally, I feel that we’ve been sold this idea that the easy and convenient options will allow us to live more fully. And that our water would be boiling.

But the data doesn’t add up. It doesn’t sound like we, as a society, are boiling water. To be honest, it feels like many of us are just sitting around at room temperature.

So how do we heat it up?

Let’s be clear: I am not immune to falling prey to this lifestyle. I have been fully sucked into this easy world of convenience and am admittedly worse off for it. It just took Nanny’s last words to make me accept it.

You might think that, given my circumstances as I ended my final conversation with Nanny, that I’d be thinking a lot about death. But that wasn’t the case. Instead, I found myself thinking intensely about life. And how, deep down, I didn’t feel like I was really living it.

Ever since I began working full-time, “officially” leaving my childhood behind, I had been living the fast and easy life. I’ve tried to cram as much as I could into my schedule. I did my best to “keep up with the Joneses”, whoever they were, and even if I didn’t really know them. I took just about everything to be important without a second thought. I fell into the trap of convenience and let everything be done for me. Seeing other 20-somethings travel all the time, I wanted to do the same. I’d go on these awesome but stressful trips where I’d pack in as much activity as I could in a short amount of time, because that’s what I was supposed to do. But I’d never truly appreciate where I was beyond the pictures I took to prove I was there. And, speaking of, when distraction came knocking in the form of social media algorithms, I welcomed it with open arms and fell down the rabbit hole repeatedly.

It’s easy to fall into this trance of speed and convenience. But it’s also why life seems to go by so quickly. And it’s why we can feel like we’re doing so much but at the end of the day feel like we haven’t really done anything. Sure, our calendars are full and schedules are busy. But with what? And to what end? What purpose?

I realized that being in this trance had kept me from doing certain things that were truly important. It kept me from being the person I actually wanted to be. It prevented me from doing the things I really wanted to do. I was too busy and too tired to live out my dreams. But why?

How I (and we, collectively) spend time illuminates the answer. How many hours had I spent mindlessly tooling around online that I could have spent talking to Nanny or my friend? Was everything in my schedule that much more urgent than spending time with a loved one? Why was I so busy jet-setting around the country on trips that crammed as much activity as they could into short amounts of time, when I had such beautiful, wild, and rugged places to explore right here in my own backyard? Why didn’t I muster up the courage to do the really hard things that my younger self dreamt up? Or even the internal, personal challenges that would make me a better person? Why was I always looking for something else, out there, somewhere, when everything I needed has been right here the whole time? Why didn’t I recognize that where I was, who I was, was enough?

Why haven’t I recognized my beautiful life for what it is and enjoyed every moment, like Nanny saw so clearly?

After much reflection, I settled on an imperfect but satisfying answer.

I realized I was living too comfortably and moving too quickly to actually live fully. I got caught up in “adulthood”, tech, and everything that came with it. I was always thinking about the next thing instead of focusing on what I was currently doing. There was always more to do, more productivity to squeeze out of a day, better experiences to be had. After a while, keeping up with that pace simply became exhausting. And, because of that, I began watching other people live their lives to the fullest and living vicariously through them. I’d watch stories of brave people embarking on grand adventures instead of going on them myself. I’d spend hours watching videos of people building their dream cabins in the woods rather than saving to purchase and build my own. I’d read articles by folks who shared their experiences of slowing down and living the “cottage” life, even though I was continuing to live a complicated life in the fast-lane. Each video or article I saw would give me a burning sensation inside that screamed, “Yes! That! That’s what you should be doing with your life dude!”

Yet I remained on the couch. Too busy, too tired, too stuck in the mud to make that thought a reality.

When we were younger, my deceased friend and I planned dozens of grand adventures we’d complete together “when we were older”. I remember reading A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson and declaring that I would someday hike the entire Appalachian Trail. When I was 16 my mom gave me an issue of Country Magazine with the best “lesser-traveled” National Parks. I circled a few and said I’d go to them all one day. I dreamed big dreams of epic adventures that pushed me beyond what my perceived limits were and would leave me exhausted but fulfilled on top of some incredible mountain somewhere. I imagined what it’d be like to become an adventure photographer whose work inspired others to live more adventurously and experience the beauty of nature. I pictured myself as an author who had done notable things and wrote about them in a way that helped others. Even smaller dreams boiled my internal water. I had always planned on growing my own food, building my own projects, learning how to be “handy”. And these ideas weren’t just physical. Deep down, I wanted to know as much as I could about the world. I wanted to live a spiritual life where I felt, for the most part, calm and joyful and loving regardless of the situation. Instead of just checking off the boxes I felt I was supposed to, each of these ideas had a deeper meaning and purpose that would enhance my life. Yet I had done none of those things. The boxes have been left unchecked. My soul unfulfilled.

Why? Well, when I got down to it, the answer was simple:

Every one of those things is really, really hard.

Each of those dreams would require me to go beyond my limits. To push myself mentally, physically, and spiritually past my self-imposed boundaries. To get off the couch, be scared, and do the thing anyway. To be willing to fail and appear incompetent (a cardinal sin for a perfectionist like myself). The strenuosity of the tasks intimidated me. It kept me stationary.

However, it wasn’t just the degree of difficulty of these ideas that kept them on the back-burner for years on end. 

The truth is I have become lazy. Comfortable. Soft.

##

Being “busy” is a convenient excuse to feel like we’re doing important things, when in reality we’re putting off the work that’s truly important and makes us feel alive. Busy is what happens in-between those moments that boil our water: getting married, seeing a grand vista, going on a big trip, becoming a parent. All of those moments allow us to feel fully alive and immersed in the present. But what about all the “busy” time in-between? Should we just chalk up our everyday existence as a blur that can’t possibly be inspiring? Is it not possible to keep our water, if not at a boil, at a healthy simmer on a day-to-day basis?

Before that call with Nanny, my answer to those questions was a resounding, “No. It’s not possible. Welp, that’s settled. Back to YouTube to watch others live their lives and do things that I can’t do.”

After that call, though, I couldn’t let that thought enter my head.

In honor of Nanny, of my friend, of the love of my life who was thankfully still by my side, I wanted to live a beautiful life. And I wanted to enjoy every moment.

Time had been moving faster than ever before. Things pop up. Calendars fill. We get busy. We veg out night after night. And life blurs by without even realizing it. 

I knew something needed to change this year. Enough promises had been left unkept for me to see that this current way of life just wasn’t cutting it. I made too many promises to myself throughout life that have remained broken. If I was going to find that sense of ease and fulfillment I felt so effortlessly in my teens and early 20s, if I was going to build a beautiful life, enjoy it, and learn about myself in the process, then I needed to change. I would need to rebel against the fast-pace of society, against the laziness that it fostered, and against my own fear. I would need to create my own counter-culture that ran aggressively upstream in spite of the discomfort it would create. 

But how? How could I slow down in a society that is faster than ever? How can I do the hard thing when the easy thing is so…well…easy? How can I live fully when I’m surrounded by apps and programs designed to steal my attention?

Weeks later, as I made the long drive back from Nanny’s funeral and Gab slept in the passenger seat next to me, I devised my plan:

Instead of moving as quickly as possible, I would need to slow down.

When ads told me to consume, I would produce instead.

If I was tempted by the easy, quick, convenient, lazy solution, I would have to commit to the strenuous, slow, difficult solution that would, by its nature, be more satisfying in the long run. 

When the tech companies inevitably came buzzing at my hip to steal as many of my 86,400 seconds I get everyday, I would need to ignore them, let them freeze out in the cold, refuse to invite them in, and spend my precious seconds on more meaningful activities.

And if I felt the pull to know, and do, everything under the sun, I would have to resist and be satisfied with enough. Which also meant I needed to define what enough looked like, and understand what truly matters in my one and only life.

Most of all, when all of these outside factors converge to brainwash me about what I should see as important and necessary, I would need to retreat back to my own, personal, carefully crafted life’s purpose. So that I could form my life and actions around what is actually important to me.

Which, at its core, means I’d have to escape from this increasingly complex life in order to simplify everything around a clear purpose and set of principles. Everything else be damned.

Slow. Strenuous. Simple.

That is how I would rebel against this malaise. 

And maybe, just maybe, this could keep my pot on the burner long enough to start heating up.

No matter how much we may want it to, water does not boil in a flash. It takes time, steady heat, a concerted effort. It happens almost in an instant, unseen. In one moment, the pot is still and we’re watching the clock. And then, suddenly, we look down and it’s rolling along in full expression. It may seem like it just happened. But we know better. We know deep down that turning the burner on and off repeatedly, moving onto other chores, failing to maintain our focus, trying to cook on all burners at once, frantically running around taking ten steps in every direction so that we don’t actually go anywhere, simply does not work. At our core, we all know what it takes to get to that moment where the water starts, and keeps, rolling in front of our eyes. A long, concerted effort. Made up of thousands of choices across days, months, even years.

I was ready to start making these choices again.

This year I was determined to uncover what it would take to get me to that point. That feeling of being completely and totally alive. I had sensed it before in fleeting circumstances. Now I wanted that to be the norm. It would take extremely hard work and dedication. I couldn’t just lay back and let life happen to me anymore. I needed to slow down in a fast-paced world. To work hard when it would be so easy to be lazy. But, I sensed, this would be worth the effort. It would be as if the self-development world divorced itself from the rise-and-grind-hustle-culture and instead married the slow living movement. Not two things that go together naturally, which meant I’d have to be super intentional about what I was doing to grow, why, and how. So that I could end the year feeling fully and completely alive. Basking in the warmth of my own boiling water, with no cold spots to be found.

Slow and strenuous would be my motto. It would guide how I spent my time, what I trained for, what my life would become. Excited by the idea, I wrote down dozens of things I’ve wished I could do but never did because they were too hard, or too scary, or I was too lazy. Activities that brought me back to myself. Things that I loved doing but had neglected as “real life” started to trickle in. Adventures that would make my inner-child smile, that would make my younger self nod with pride at the man I had become.

A brutal and epic hike that I wasn’t sure I could even finish, but would have to if I started. Traveling longer than I ever imagined possible in a day to rekindle my love of wandering. Climbing up sheer cliffs in spite of my deep fear of heights. Taking photos of rugged and beautiful places, which meant putting in the effort to get to those rugged and beautiful places. Mindfully gathering my own food when I could easily just go to the supermarket. Noticing and honoring the changing of the seasons, the moon, and the weather when I could stay indoors and appreciate the changing YouTube homepage. Fasting from technology, something I am far too dependent on. Giving myself room to breathe. Saying no. Traveling slowly, locally, purposefully. Digging deep within myself to confront my deepest fears. Embracing being over doing. Facing the reality of my shortcomings and working to improve them, rather than sweeping them under the rug. Confronting myself to my core. Staring into my soul. Becoming better.

Slow down. Do hard things. And make sure all of it matters.

From this point forward, I would turn my burner to “high” and begin to experience the gradual, increasing warmth. Eventually, with enough time, commitment, and effort, my water would begin to heat, then simmer, and finally, with some luck, boil. I would live while I’m alive, appreciate the passing of time, fill my life with meaningful experiences, and maybe, just maybe, finally live the life that I wanted to live instead of the one that happened to be the easiest and most convenient at the time.

It was time to create a beautiful life and enjoy every moment.