I believe that you are sometimes wondering about it just as I do- how does it come that in 21th century with all the technology developments we are in a hurry all the time and as busy as never before.

I found this great book by journalist Carl Honoré “How worldwide movement of slowness is challenging the cult of speed” . It’s an international bestseller (and I understand why!), written in an easy-to-read way, full of inspiring examples from life. The author talks about various themes, like slow food, slow sex, slowness and children, benefits of working less hard and many more.

Here are some passages:

“Nearly half of Britons now eat their evening meal in front of TH, and the average British family spends more time together in a car than they do around a table. When families eat together, it is often at fast-food joints like McDonalds, where the average meal lasts 11 minutes. (..) Two centuries ago, the average pig took five years to reach 130 pounds; today it hists 220 pounds after just six months and is slaughted before it loses its baby teeth.”

But things are slowly (;) ) changing.. “Young Italians are signing up for courses to learn the kitchen tricks that their mamma failed to teach them. North American companies arrange fo their stuff to cook a sumptuous meal together as a tem-building exercise. Celebrity chefs such as Emeril Lagasse, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver rule the airwaves and sell millions of their recipe books.”

“Children are not born obsessed with speed and productivity- we make them that way. Single-parent homes put extra prssure on kids to shoulder adult responsabylities. Advertisers encourage them to become consumers earlier. School teach them to live by clock and use time as efficient as possible. Parents reinforce that lesson by packing their schedules with extracurricular activities. Everything gives children the message that less is not more, and that faster is always better. One of the first frazes my son learned to say was: “Come on! Hurry up!” (..) I came across an ad for BBC foreign language course for children. “Speak French at 3! Spanish at 7!” screamed the headline. “If you wait, it will be too late!” (..) Children increasingly pay the price for leading rushed lives. Kids as young as five now suffer from upset stomachs, headaches, nsomnia, depression and eating disorders brought on by stress. Like everyone else in our “always-on” society, many children get too little sleep nowadays.”

“Not long ago, the New Yorker published a cartoon that summed up the growing fear that modern youngsters are being denied a real childhood. Two primary-school boys are walking down the street, books under their arms, baseball caps on their heads. With world-weariness beyond his years, one mutters to the other: “So many toys- so little unstructured time.” “