Taking A Slow Kick Might Take You Further Than A Fast Run Down Your Bucket List
Discover more from Un-Rush by Claudia Brose
Taking A Slow Kick Might Take You Further Than A Fast Run Down Your Bucket List
Use these insights to kick your butt and not your bucket
Hello there - in a rushed world,
Here comes your weekly permission to Un-rush and Stress Less.
Timeless insights and impulses to re-think why un-rushing makes your life better.
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INSIGHTS
SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Do Nothing
Sometimes doing nothing is the best way to do the most. You might think you waste your time, when in fact you might produce more than when running around busy.
Pretend Stress
Stress happens when we pretend to be stressed even though we are not stressed out.
We pretend to be stressed because we believe people who have a busy calendar, run around, have one meeting after the other and are constantly busy, are the winners. Since we want to be on the winning team, we act even busy even when we have some stress-free periods because we don't want to look like a loser. Do you realize how silly this is?!
How many employees pretend to be stressed out, so they look good, so they don't get more workload, so they look productive, so they look like they're doing their job? Give yourself a break – and realize the nonsense of this behavior!
Digesting Time
You can go crazy from one meeting to the other, from one destination to the next, but if you don’t slow down in between to give yourself time to digest the input you got, and to reflect on the best-case decision and worst-case scenario you end up with not thought-through decisions and superficial behavior.
Be Wise
“Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.” — Shakespeare
IMPULSES
I have curated resources and stories below on slowing down and stressing less, designed to open up new ways of looking at why you should give yourself permission to un-rush.
Decelerated Soccer
At first the sport was ridiculed. Meanwhile, in England, the sport is growing rapidly, so does it in other countries. Slow soccer.
Why not? This way we can play no matter how old.
Walking Football has become a thing. First in England, now in many other countries. It is an ideal sport for seniors or people with disabilities. Small field, small goals and flexible team strengths. No goalie and no offsides (who understands offsides anyways?!). A normal soccer ball only be kicked up to waist height and physical contact is forbidden, six against six players. Take it easy and enjoy the beautiful game!
It's all about technique, passing ability and game overview. Looking at it from a health point of view it can only be positive: improving endurance skills, coordination, and balance and also camaraderie.
Ambition nevertheless does not come too short. The number of tournaments, in the UK and other European countries, is growing steadily. Walking football has been played in England since 2011. There are over a thousand clubs and 200,000 players. The game is played "just for fun" and ambitiously in organized leagues.
And the decelerated kick is not only good for the body, but also for the psyche. How could fun, fitness and friendship not contribute to your mental well-being?! It’s also a great benefit for society as a whole, which has been shown by the numerous scientific studies conducted in recent years.
Before kicking the bucket, kick the ball. It has much better prospects.
Doing Nothing
The importance of spending time doing nothing at all, explained in this article by the artist Marina Abramović. We have all become far too busy and preoccupied with life, Abramović says. Sometimes you just have to say ‘Okay f%ck it, I’m doing nothing today’ and that’s fine.
Abramović explains why sometimes doing nothing is the best way to do the most. You might think you waste your time, when in fact you might produce more than when running around busy. As Abramović says: “Life opens itself up to you in ways that one can’t possibly imagine when you are doing nothing. This is the greatest medium of them all. When I was doing nothing, I dreamt up some of my most important ideas.”
Growing Through Slowingdown
I loved reading Richard Merrick’s thoughts on slowing down in his piece on Artisanal Meandering:
“To progress faster, we need to slow down. It’s why speed restrictions on motorways work, but the principle applies far more widely, not least to thinking. Trying to think faster makes about as much sense as asking trees to grow faster. Yet, at work, we are surrounded by exhortations and SMART mentalities to go ever faster in search of ‘productivity’.”
“To grow into who we are, we need the time and space to think, to meander, experiment and create substance. Work, on the other hand, would rather we just go faster in order to meet those SMART goals because even if the end results are thin and weak, the goals have been met and bonuses achieved.”