On making space and slowing down: How I’m finding time to try new things
Happy New Year, friends.
In my previous letter on my word of the year for 2024, I wrote about my intention to make space for the Other, that indelible sensation of a deeper world yawning open beneath your feet, usually accessed (by me at least) through creative pursuits. I’ve been tripping on that idea ever since, caught on the thought experiment of what can be cut out to give room for the Other to move in.
It is now January and we are now firmly in the slowest time of year, or at least the slowest time for the natural world in the northern hemisphere. It is (despite what the weather has been like lately!) a time where growth and activity is under a shroud of ice, a time of hibernation and deep quiet and slower, darker days. This obviously doesn’t mean that all life has stopped—on a recent hike I listened to the banging of woodpeckers and traipsed over frozen deer tracks and was surrounded by the chattering of small birds and red squirrels and chipmunks, all the busy little creatures that remain busy little creatures all year ‘round. But still, it’s undeniable that there’s a different kind of silence during the coming weeks as we wait for the first, earliest signs of the seasonal shift to show themselves later in February.
If we lived in a different kind of world, that slowness would perhaps be reflected in our lives at this time of year, too. But it’s not, and I know that for me and likely every single one of you reading this, we’re as busy as ever with our many obligations and non-negotiable commitments. Like, I don’t think I can call out of work with the excuse of, “But it’s winter.”
Which brings me back to my thought experiment: what can be cut out or reduced to give more space in my life?
What I’m discovering is (at least right now) paradoxical. As I try to make space for more of the Other, it turns out that I’m not taking much out at all. Instead, I’m adding things in. Add in more hiking and photography and morning walks. Add in this newsletter. Add in teaching myself videography. Add in crochet and sewing lessons and baking bread. These are things that feel good and correct, factors deeply in line with my values. They really are, as I wrote about last time, filling my cup: tangibly adding to my energy instead of detracting.
Which, duh. Like most grand revelations, that seems pretty obvious in retrospect. But I think I always had the idea that doing more things, even things I love, would drain my mental resources and thus make it harder for me to show up in the non-negotiable spaces like my career—which, hi, is a pretty skewed sense of priorities. This realisation really strikes at the heart of the shit I’m trying to work through this year, including not being defined by my job (a work in progress, which I am sure I will talk about a lot more down the road).
So what does this mean? I’ve always thought of slow living as an act of subtraction, of removing obligations from the never-ending to-do list to take each moment slower. And to be fair, that’s always going to be part of it because choosing to slow down means choosing to be intentional about what we bring into our day-to-day life. But what’s proving more impactful right now, what actually feels like it’s making a change in my psyche, is addition. Adding in the things I want to learn and do and experience is what’s actually making space.
I’m a naturally risk-averse person, and that has often translated into a hesitation to try new things (combine that with a severe case of perfectionism and you have a recipe for disaster). But knowing now that adding in good habits and hobbies—even and sometimes especially when they’re hard!—actually decreases the mental load takes a lot of the pressure and fear away from diving into new projects.
Which again, duh.
And so I’ve been trying new things: chief among them challenging myself to create more video content which is so very much outside my comfort zone, and building a new website which you may or may not see soon. And it’s been good and fulfilling to do, and that’s really all the reason I need.
Until next time.