Why You Should Choose The Longest Line In The Supermarket
Have you ever been out walking only to be stopped by someone in front of you who is walking too slowly? You start feeling a bit irritated while simultaneously trying to calculate whether it will be fastest to walk past them on the right side or the left? Afterward, you are left with a feeling of annoyance.
I used to be this way. I was always walking extremely fast, thinking fast, talking fast, and had very little patience with slow people. However, my perception of the ‘power of slow’ completely changed during my first burnout after I had returned from 10 days of silent meditation in the rainforest. What changed? I dared to be brutally honest with myself: What if THEY are not the problem here, and what if I can learn something about myself by observing THEM? So instead of feeling annoyed by slow people in front of me on the street, I started to welcome it and I saw it as a reminder that I might be walking too fast, being too stressed, and perhaps needing to slow down. I started thanking them. Quietly, of course!
During my burnout, I had become painfully aware of how vital it was to spend my energy wisely on what truly mattered to me. So to practice this “energy management”, I started to use the following illustration daily to plan my energy wisely: Imagine yourself waking up thinking about a bucket of energy - an “energy bucket”. Everyone who has ever had a bad night knows that you don’t always wake up with a bucket filled with 100 % energy. Depending on the quality of your sleep, your day might start with 80 % energy. For you to not burn yourself out over time, this amount of energy has to be distributed carefully throughout the day. Perhaps you spend 50 % of your daily energy at work, 10 % on commuting, 10 % on your family/friends, and 5 % on groceries and cooking. This leaves only 5 % for everything else in your life — including unforeseen events that take your energy - if you allow them to. So ask yourself: do I really want to spend the last precious 5 % of my energy of the day being irritated on people walking too slowly, and other similar things out of my control?
After understanding the ‘power of slow’ and wise energy management, I am now constantly searching for situations in life where I can slow down and practice accepting ‘what is’ (as opposed to being irritated about things not being how I want them to be). I HAVE STARTED TO CHOOSE THE LONGEST LINE IN THE SUPERMARKET! Why? It’s a useful time to stop, recharge, and mindfully think about how I want to spend the remaining energy in my “energy bucket” wisely. I am grateful for the opportunity to have a few minutes for myself, to be less in my head and more in my body. To feel my feet on the ground and my stressed breath slowing down. To be present in the present moment. In the here and now. Because life only happens in the here and now, so if we miss the now - we miss life. 😇
