Please Slow Down!

I can't promise this post is going to have a conclusion of any sort. Thoughts have just been swirling in my head about this for awhile now, so instead of remaining frustrated, I thought I'd go ahead and try to share them.

America needs to slow down. Until about five years ago, when I spent my first summer in Spain I wouldn't have really understood what that would even look like. I thrive off of to-do lists. I love the feeling of accomplishment when you have twelve things listed in your ever necessary planner and at the end of the day, they all have been completed. I prefer drawing a square next to the item to be done and then filling it with a pretty check mark once finished. Going at a super fast pace used to be norm. School/Work/Grocery/Post Office/Target/oh forgot something and back to the grocery/back to school/2 more errands/ballet/homework/you get the point. All great things, but are they all really necessary to shove into one day?

I'm sure there are billions of talks, articles, movies and any other media source on this topic in agreement that America moves too fast, but I'm wondering how you really try and slow down your life when everything around you is in rebellion and just wants to go faster.

Living in Europe for a couple of summers and then 2 years after college really changed my perspective on this issue of the speed of cultures as I came to embrace the slower pace of life. With the reliance on public transportation and the value of spending time with family and friends rather than getting from point A,B,C and Z at the fastest speed possible, it was OK if all you got done in a day were go to work, take a 2 hour lunch break, go back to work for a couple of hours and then go back home to your family.

At first it drove me nuts (refer back to the love of the check mark.) After time, though, I came to embrace and LOVE the slower pace. What's funny, though, is that I keep using the word "slower," but in these countries it is actually just the normal pace.

So...the reality is I live in America. My prayer for the semester is that I would learn so much more about being content where the Lord has me in life circumstances and generally in Him alone. Plus I don't just want to up and move back to Europe for the rest of my life. Vacation, bring it on...life...not ready for that big of a commitment. So, how do the conflicting emotions of - trying to not feel "lazy" here in America because I don't want to go as fast as everything around me while at the same time realizing I am in America and this is the speed everything goes - actually go together?

I promised I wouldn't have a conclusion. I'm not trying to make this an "American Culture Stinks" post by any means, but this is just something I'm really wrestling with that has crept into everything I do. Insight would be awesome. Personal stories great. Prayers even better.