Opinions expressed within the content are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any listed websites, their affiliates, any entity physical or otherwise, anything, anyone or any other form of matter that isn’t completely and uniquely, me.
23 July 2024
take time to smell the roses (idiom)
Did you know that this popular saying is actually a combination of two phrases? “Always stop and smell the roses” and “wake up and smell the coffee”.
The first, telling us to stop, pause, especially when we’re stressed and overworked - to appreciate the smaller, simpler things in life. The latter, telling us to ‘get real’ and think logically about what is happening around us. Not to be gullible. Not to be duped.
In reality, when do we do either of these things?
In this self-imposed rat race called life, most of us are rocketing our way towards the finish line, barrelling over everyone else in our paths, coming up with all kinds of schemes to get there faster, and choosing short cuts, mistruths, and white lies in order to win. What exactly is this prize that we are so focused on?
When do we stop and think about what we really want? About the information we’re being bombarded with? What is this goal we’re hurtling ourselves towards? And when do we pause and think about how we truly feel?
The problem is, many of us don’t want to. Being alone with your thoughts and confronting your feelings is terrifying. It makes you completely vulnerable and also might put you in a position where everything that you believe is true, is a lie. What if you went out on a limb and decided to join a 3-day meditation course? No eye contact, no talking, just you and your thoughts. Alone, for 3 entire days. Many people would leave after the first afternoon. “I don’t like this.” “This is stupid.” “This is a waste of time.” “I could be doing something more productive.”
These are the excuses we give ourselves because we’re now so programmed to be mentally stimulated 100% of the time. Music, emails, social media, overflowing calendars, Netflix…
We’re in this state now but many of us might remember a time when a cardboard box and a stick provided endless opportunities for play, imagination, and creativity. The younger generation in many developed countries however will never know this innocent joy. Schools are programmed to control and drive you around the hamster wheel until you’re an adult and are conditioned to do it yourself. We’re once-chained elephants, beaten with a stick until a flimsy piece of thread will hold us in place.
The human beings of today are well-oiled machines. No time for rest, no time for sleep, no time for friends, no time for relationships. Everything done with instant gratification and those who are not a part of this linear GDP-hungry system, we call lazy. We call those who’ve taken time to stop and smell the roses and who think about how they feel, hippies. Those crazy dreadlock-wearing, ganja-smoking, good-for-nothing people who live off the grid and sleep on the beach. Those who gave up the starchy uniforms of ties and heels to be grounded in the sand, walking barefoot, waking up to sunrises, going to sleep with sunsets, dreaming under blankets of stars and being serenaded by the ebb and flow of the waves. But they don’t contribute to the economy, therefore, they’re lazy.
I don’t know about you but that simplified, nomad, human, lifestyle appeals to me greatly. There was a point in my life where I lived in my backpack. I travelled as a solo Singaporean female through South and Central America long before the days of travel influencers. I still could never be a ‘hippie’ though. Years of mental coercion and moulding still told me that I had to do something, that I had to be useful. That’s why I ended up not being able to travel freely as many do but instead worked in bars and volunteered in wildlife rescue centres, jungle research stations, and marine conservation NGOs. Even today as I sit and write this over my summer vacation, I woke up this morning thinking, “It’s been two weeks! I have to post an article on my Substack.”
I have to do!
What if we were all just a little bit more lazy?
Earlier this year, Singapore announced the possibility of a 4-day work week. Given the opportunity, how many of us would truly enjoy that one day ‘off’? How many of us would switch off our phones, not check our emails, not feel inclined to do extra work on the side, not drive Grab instead, not pack our day with things to do?
How many will use that day to just be? To pause. To think. To go inward. To sit with our thoughts. To be a human being and not a robot?
In yoga, pauses between breaths are called, “Kumbhaka” in Sanskrit. It is something I (and I’m sure many of you) have never even thought about. The spaces in between our breaths, where a pause happens repeatedly and naturally before the next breath cycle starts. This is the place where we are meant to “rest in awareness, to find balance, homeostasis, and healing.”
And if you think yoga belongs to the hippies, then let me share this in science-speak. Extending the pause between breaths slows down your breathing, which in turn slows your heart rate, relaxes muscles, and activates your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). This is the system that controls your rest and relaxation response and shuts off the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) – the flight or fight response. In activating your PNS, the body is able to think clearly because it’s not in stress mode.
The Guinness Book of World Records states that the “longest time breath held voluntarily underwater (male) is 24 min 37.36 sec.” This was “achieved by Budimir Šobat (Croatia), in Sisak, Croatia, on 27 March 2021.”
Now, most of us can hold our breath for around 30 seconds to a minute. I’ve just started learning to freedive and that pause, it is difficult. Being underwater and not hearing yourself breathe - you only have your mind. Yourself. Your thoughts. To be quiet, alone, completely. I don’t know what to do with myself. My coach says I’m listening to my body telling me to go back up, rather than listening to my heart – the reason I want to learn freediving in the first place - to stay underwater. Now think about just being quiet and alone, with nothing but your thoughts, not even your breath to remind you that you’re alive – for 24 minutes. Your mind screams at you telling you to do something.
But this is exactly what we’re trying to fight. We’re trying to practice the pause for as long as possible. To make it acceptable and okay – to just be.
So, I challenge myself and you, dear reader – to practice the pause. To write, to think, to reflect, to feel. It doesn’t have to a be a year-long sabbatical - it can just be a little time every day where we don’t do.
What do you feel? What do you want? Will tears come? Will they be happy or sad or angry? Will we decide we want to change our jobs? Will we decide that we are not in love?
Will we decide that we are enough?
That it is enough to just be and not to do.