I watch him as he sits at the kitchen counter watching woodturning videos on his phone. He is oblivious to the fact that I am staring at him… wondering what he thinks he is doing just sitting there. My mind races to all of the things he could be doing instead… in my frustration I can hear my heartbeat like water pounding over a waterfall hurling its way down the rocks. Deafening.
He is oblivious.
Recently I was on my stationary bike listening to a podcast called “Good Life Project’ and an interview with Carlos Whittaker was on. This man went seven weeks without screens. That’s right, SEVEN WEEKS! The average American doesn’t go 7 minutes without checking their phone, their computer, or their tablet much less seven weeks. Incredible. During his interview Carlos talked about his experience spending weeks in a monastery in California, weeks on an Amish sheep farm in Ohio and returning home to spend weeks without his screens while his family surrounded him using theirs. (It’s the January 19th, 2025 episode, go listen, it’s great.)
There were multiple amazing points that were made about how we have evicted ourselves from our lives, but as I am standing in the kitchen sipping coffee, watching my husband just…sit…one point in particular returned to me. Life at 3 miles an hour.
During the time with the monks Carlos found himself coming unglued with how slow everything moved; they ate slowly, they worked slowly, they walked slowly, on the rare occasion that anyone spoke they even talked slowly…. Everything was slow! It drove him crazy!!! But it brings up a powerful point.
The average human is designed to move at approximately 3 miles per hour. Any faster than that and our mind starts to go into a low grade anxiety response because it perceives itself as being beyond its own control (Harvard school of Psychology study). That’s why you can be cruising down the freeway thinking you’re relaxed but your back is tight, or your hands are gripping the wheel hard, or your jaw is set because you’re ready to react quickly if you need to. In short, your mind knows you’re not designed to move that fast. So, here Mr. Whittaker is, living at a monastery in the hills, forced to move slowly, in silence about 23 hours a day, absolutely turning inside out… until one monk tells him “walk up the mountain and watch the storm roll in.” He goes on to tell about the life changing experience of watching the sky completely turn over from his view on the top of the mountain. Everything changed as he just… sat.
I am reminded of how my need to get things done, to cross them off my list, the perpetual sense of being behind in LIFE, go, go, go, do, do, do makes me all the wrong kinds of anxious inside of myself, and still, it is my autopilot. Shit has got to get done!
My husband, in his retirement, has mastered the art of life at 3 miles per hour. While oftentimes it is with a screen watching what he finds interesting and can learn from. Sometimes he gets lost in things that for me are a waste of time, but for him, he is joyfully curious to spend time watching and learning and to do what is in front of him. To moderate his time and effort so there is an ease to the balance of accomplishment and being… I could learn some things from him. And I am trying.
In this season of winter and everything around me in Spirit and vibration is asking me to sit, to drink tea, to watch the snow fall (I’m actually doing that right now) to be slow, and still the relentless plug to move and do and accomplish.
So, I sit. I watch the snow fall. I am doing yoga, journaling, cleaning out closets, getting rid of another round of what no longer serves me… and then I sit. In the sauna, in my cozy chair in my office, sometimes in my living room watching the birds. I am making it a daily practice.
All day everyday? Hell no, I’ve got work to do. But each day, I take time to just BE. I walk in the woods in the snow because it’s deep and it makes me go slow and pay attention to it. Mindful intentional time of moving slowly and as I do, I notice something powerful… a deeper connection to the Being that is experiencing the doing. When I am slow I can feel myself. I can notice what is for me to notice. I can see and feel, and hear, and taste, and wonder at the magic of life around me because I am going slowly enough to have time to notice those things.
Try it.
What can you discover in your own life at 3 MPH?
Forever the journey, Anne