"Slower is Faster"

“Slower is faster” is an old time Yankee carpenter’s variation of “haste makes waste”.  I first learned of this expression while working in the building trades many years ago. Rushing around on a job-site invariably leads to errors and the same work often has to be done again.  This is common when ample time is not given to convert building ideas into actual construction in actual physical reality. Not only does the work often need to be redone, the shoddy work needs to be deconstructed or destroyed and this also takes time.

I was watching a building show on TV a few years back and the lead carpenter joked that their motto was, “We do it right, because we do it twice.”  We have to laugh at our collective folly to want things quickly and easily and think there will be no negative, unforeseen consequence. Hasty decisions are common and none are more perilous than the rash decisions to treat the living earth as if it is nothing more than a collection of resources to be exploited.  The rate of environmental degradation is staggering and we can’t slow down enough to stop and make any sense of it or we would have reversed course long ago. It seems unlikely that we will get a chance to “do it twice”. Good planets are hard to find, yet the folly continues and it continues at top speed.

At Landmark College I teach a T’ai Chi class called Mindfulness in Motion and moving slowly and fluidly is a fundamental aspect of that practice.  I frequently remind my students throughout the semester that “slower is faster”. It’s a reminder that the fastest way to get where you want to go is to take the time to be clear of your destination, and take the time to be clear of right action, and you will arrive much more quickly than by making a snap decision to take a “shortcut” that gets you nowhere fast.

Rowers add a word to link things together: “slower is smoother, and smoother is faster”.  It’s easy to picture the contrast between a highly skilled rower using slow and smooth strokes, and an eager novice moving the oars frantically and splashing about but going nowhere.   

The nice thing about t’ai chi or meditation, or any other mindfulness practice, is that it requires that we pause.  We pause to set aside the usual daily tasks and to start the practice. We pause long enough to notice that our mind is a monkey and we pause long enough to acknowledge emotions that might not otherwise inform and enlighten.  We pause long enough to realize we have a mind, but we are not our minds; nor are we defined by the thoughts that the mind generates. “Don’t believe everything you think” is a solid teaching that comes from this pause taken by the broader (and generally slower) mindfulness community.

Carpenters from the Old Country had a corollary to the Yankee carpenter’s “slower is faster”:

“ ‘tis no delay to stop and keen an edge.”  The idea here is that a sharp tool will get the job done so much more quickly that the time taken to sharpen the dull tool is well worth it.  Seems to me that, as sentient beings, it would serve us well to pause and refine our understanding of how living systems work on the planet and how we might fit into them.  It would serve us well to approach our primary relationships with sharper awareness and gratitude. Maybe with a keen edge we can start to adjust our economic engine so it does not drive us off the cliff.  

As a Native American friend of mine put it, “we need to sync up” again with the life giving and life supporting system that is our earth.  Ultimately, I believe we will. In the meantime, we are frantically rowing in a circle and heading toward the drain.

We live in a frenetic society and we somehow think that doing it all faster is going to get us “there”.  Maybe that’s why the speed of computers and pace of postmodern society does not move me. It’s a fool’s game.  Wise living on earth involves living more slowly and more intentionally. Treating “all our relations” with due respect requires a pause for clear thinking.  Fortunately, equanimity and wisdom are “nearer than our breath.” Understanding that slower is faster can help us to stand tall, breathe easy, and choose wisely.