On The Importance of Slowing Down

We’re now living in the 21st century, the digital age ladies and gentlemen! Wherein a click of a button, food is ready at your disposal, where if you need to get from one place to another it’s no problem anymore, thanks to apps like Uber and Lyft, and in milliseconds if you’re in need of even the smallest bit of information on a certain topic? Boom, here’s Google giving you millions upon billions of credible sources.

What am I hinting at? We’re currently living in an era where whatever you want can be at your fingertips, whenever you want it, and wherever you may be, faster than you can say Mississippi. But with everyone and everything going full throttle at life, it’s high time for us to slow down and think—are we even on the right path?

Thomas Frank has a video on his channel titled The Skill You’re Slowly Losing, and in it, he talks about the pros and cons of having countless amounts of information and wisdom readily available for you as soon as you need it. And we do indeed have to appreciate the fact that we don’t have to walk for miles on end just to get into a library and pick up a dictionary to look at the definition of the word “boomer.” Gone are the days where you have to spend hours with your face slammed on a book just looking for credible sources on why the moon landing was fake. Relax, I’m only kidding.

The point is, we’re so blessed to easily have something that our ancestors would have died for. But here’s the catch, as we continue to use this amazing asset named The Internet, your critical thinking skills are harmed. Think of it like this, you once played the piano and sang,  on top of your oh-so-sweet piano skills. Then you discover karaoke, and you think, “Why do I have to play the piano and sing when I can just press a button and music’s already playing?”

So for the longest time, you don’t play the piano and just stick with karaoke. What for when you can just have music play for you at the press of a button? But then what happens? You slowly lose that skill of piano playing. Same goes with the internet, in that the more you use it and rely on it, you slowly diminish your cognitive faculties and the skill of critical thinking. No longer are you thinking for yourself, you’re relying on the answers the worldwide web has in store.

Also, humans are not built for consuming endless amounts of information in such a short period of time, we’d undergo information overload and just go bonkers.

The day before I started writing this article, I was having a conversation with my friend. And quick side note, at the time of this conversation I had just finished Chris Voss’ MasterClass on The Art of Negotiation as well as a few books on communications such as How To Win Friends And Influence People and The Laws of Human Nature. So the conversation was going on, and I could feel myself taking in what he’s saying, calculating a response, and then saying those curated words—like a bloody robot!

I couldn’t even speak to my friend like a normal human being. I was acting as though I was some sort of robot who keeps adding in new codes, or in this case the knowledge I consume at such a fast rate.

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions.

—Proverbs 18:2

So the next time you’re doing a math problem, don’t use a calculator, put your head down and start working on those equations until your pencil runs out of lead. If you need to get somewhere sometime soon, walk the distance. What better way to slow down and go back to where we all started than use our God-given means of transportation—our legs. Got an assignment on summarizing a chapter of a book? Read the chapter and summarize it on your own, I see you going on SparkNotes and copy-pasting the chapter summaries. Don’t worry I used to do that too.

Listen we’re all on the same boat, it’s easy to get sucked in the comfort of using the internet, I know I have for the longest time. But like I said, it’s definitely high time for us to slow down and think—are we even going on the right path?