The Importance of Slowing Down in a Fast-Paced World

Hello, hello! It’s been a while since I’ve popped back on here to write a post. I had lots of great plans for reviews and other posts which – as all great plans tend to do – evaporated as soon as the first heatwave hit. We’ve been quite lucky not to have been hit as badly as other areas so I haven’t quite melted yet, unlike my energy to do basically anything besides complain about the heat.

What was meant to be a very short break as I headed to the beach for a few days and caught up on reviews accidentally turned into a month-long unplanned hiatus… oops! As I finally felt like writing something again today, I started thinking about what a privilege it is to just slow down. Not feeling the rush to do a million things a day, not feeling the pressure to post a story, a reel, follow the latest trend, but just to be for a while. No stats or progress indicators to show for it.

In my days offline, I finished exactly one book. The pressure to meet deadlines, the rush to post so the algorithm will be happy and well-fed, the fear of not doing enough, not “being” enough as a reviewer and creator… well, somehow they too melted in the sunshine. And as I spent my days in the sunshine, away from the screen and with my loved ones, I couldn’t remember what I had been rushing for. Sure, the market has its needs and it favours everyone talking about new releases all the time, but… we’re still reading books that are literally centuries old. That new release won’t suddenly disappear or lose all meaning if it’s read a few weeks, months or even years later.

And that’s the beauty of reading, isn’t it? Books will always be there. They don’t expire (except for those pesky library holds that all come in at the same time); they don’t stop being worth reading just because they’re not “trending” or fresh off the press. Enjoying a book forces us to slow down and look at the world through someone else’s eyes for a little while, and it allows us to form new connections as we talk about it with another reader – sometimes months or years later.

Tonight, I’ll be picking up my current read because I really want to read it, not because I have to, and I will talk about it when it feels right to do so, not to meet a deadline. I’ll never stop feeling grateful to have a space such as this and to belong to a community of wonderful people where I know I can always take a random break and come back, new stories waiting to be discovered and shared. Slowly.

If you read this far, thank you for sticking around and bearing with my random thoughts today. Here’s a pretty picture of the sea for you as a little thank you.

Do you ever feel the need to slow down? Let’s chat in the comments!