This time of year around the holiday season I always like to read some books that help me pop my head up, analyze how I’m doing things and maybe make some changes for the better. This year I am just finishing up “Slowing Down to the Speed of Joy”, by Matthew Kelly, and I wanted to put it on your radar.
I know a book is speaking to me when I find myself underlining roughly half the book (yes, I’m the dork that reads books with a pen and underlines stuff), and that was the case with this one! I’m actually not even quite finished yet, but I wanted to share it with you anyway because I’m certain many of us in Central Park feel over-scheduled, run down and burnt out. This book speaks to these issues and has some suggestions!
It’s not a book of “to do” lists or step by steps, but it will likely get your wheels spinning and has a few high level ideas for you.
So rather than writing a book report summarizing it for you, I want to provide you with 5 excerpts from sections that I found useful. If you read them and think “this is me!” I’d suggest you order the book (or maybe read on for a way you could get it delivered to your Central Park door step for free!)
5 Parts that Spoke to Me:
“Just because you are busy doing a lot (activity) does not mean anything of value is being accomplished (outcome)”.
That really resonates with me! I feel like I work hard but too many days I get pulled all over the place and allow myself to be distracted by minor tasks, rather than the big things that matter. How many of your days end and you look at your to do list and say “crap, all my big items are still on the list!”?
“Children who are overscheduled are experiencing anxiety, fatigue, headaches, stomachaches, sleep issues and depression.”
Maybe this hectic life we’ve created for ourselves isn’t just going to hurt us, we’re doing damage to our kids as well by overdoing it! We need to learn to slow down for our health and for theirs. We’re modeling how life is done for them (like it or not!), and what do we teach them when we book ourselves 110% of our time and overcommit?
“Busyness is the impetus for the speed of our lives, and therefore, the cause of our lost joy.”
I can relate to this one as well. When I’m moving too fast I don’t see the people in front of me, I don’t notice the little things, I don’t savor the moment. That’s a damn shame because when I slow down I have things to be joyful about all around me! If you feel like some of the joy has left your life (I imagine a very common thing for us 40 somethings), this book is worth reading!
“Busyness doesn’t make us important; it makes us unloving, ineffective, overwhelmed, distracted, exhausted, anxious, resentful, unfulfilled, inflexible, reactive, unhealthy, short-tempered, arrogant and disconnected.”
Ouch. If I admit that I’ve created a life that’s overly busy, then a lot of those adjectives must describe me. None of those are attributes I want to be described as.
“Focus on the high-impact activities that yield massive results, so you can have more leisure time. [Not more work time!]”.
This may seem obvious, but I think that we often use technology to get more efficient, then we use the time gained to just cram in more work! That lack of leisure time is a big part of why we’re so run down! If we fall into this trap there is no end in sight and we just end up over-working and failing in other areas of our life.
Those are just 5 parts of the book I enjoyed, but there are many more I could go into. He covers topics like building in margin to your life, creating a weekly day of rest, how to handle interruptions more gracefully (very interesting thing I’ve never even thought about!) and most importantly getting to an understanding of what “enough” means in your life.
It’s an easy, quick read and I highly recommend it. As always, take the parts you like and leave the rest.
If you’ve made it this far in this blog post, you get a crack at a free book! I’ve purchased 3 copies and I’ll deliver a copy to your Central Park doorstep. No obligation, other than you have to read it and then pass it along to a friend in need rather than letting it collect dust on your bookshelf. To get your free copy just shoot me an email at [email protected] and your address. First 3 emails I receive will get a copy! First come, first served.
Hope you find some value in it and I hope it helps you slow your life down to the speed of joy. I’m working on it on my end…it’s a work in Progress.
*Photo credit: Vlada Karpovich
