Kelly Slowing Down to the Speed of Joy

The Simple Art of Taking Back Your Life
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-63582-565-7
Verlag: Blue Sparrow
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 160 Seiten

Reihe: Slowing Down to the Speed of Joy

'I was living my life like a Ferrari with no brakes.' Matthew Kelly spent thirty years rushing from one thing to the next. Leaving one thing early, arriving at the next thing late, squeezing as much as was inhumanely possible into each day-always striving for more, better, and faster. But then something changed. Slowing Down to the Speed of Joy is a deeply personal book. It provides a rare and intimate look at the author's own struggles with busy and urgent. By revealing his own vulnerabilities, Kelly provides us with the practical insights and timeless wisdom necessary to banish busy and urgent from our own lives. The faster you go the more likely you are to crash, but we just keep going faster. We think if we get all the urgent stuff done, we will have time for what's important. But we never do. Busy is not your friend. Only a toxic friend leaves you feeling anxious, overwhelmed, discouraged, exhausted, stressed, inadequate and resentful. It's time to take our lives back from this tyrant. The speed and busyness of our lives stand in direct opposition to what we say matters most. It's time for a new strategy. It's time to embrace the speed of joy. Slowing Down to the Speed of Joy isn't just a book. It's a way of life. It will quite simply and in every way imaginable change your life.

Matthew Kelly has dedicated his life to helping people become the-best-version-of-themselves. He is the author of more than forty books, including: Life is Messy, I Heard God Laugh, The Rocking Chair Prophet, Holy Moments, and The Fourth Quarter of Your Life. His books have been published in more than thirty languages, have appeared on the most prestigious bestseller lists, and have sold more than sixty million copies.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kelly, Matthew

Leseproben

PART TWO HUMAN FLOURISHING The Trail Above the Clouds One hundred years ago, an archeologist and his team set off to explore Machu Picchu and the ancient civilization of the Inca in South America. They arrived in Lima, Peru on a steamship, and then traveled by bus to Cusco, the former capital of the Inca, where they paused for three days to adjust to the altitude. From there they traveled on a wagon drawn by mules while their equipment was carried by llamas to Piscacucho. They were now high in the Andes Mountains. After years of planning and months of travel they were so close to their destination. Machu Picchu was now only twenty-eight miles away, but it was a treacherous twenty-eight miles that had claimed many lives. Located high in the Andes of Peru, the ancient citadel of Machu Picchu was built for the Inca emperor Pachacuti in the fifteenth century. It is one of the most spectacular wonders of the world and is believed to have been a royal retreat or a sacred religious site. That night our archeologist lay awake thinking about the first time he read the issue of National Geographic that detailed the American explorer Hiram Bingham’s discovery of this lost city of the Incas in 1911. He must have read that issue a hundred times as a child. He had been dreaming of visiting ever since. And now he was so close. The archeologist spent the next day talking to locals about guides and porters. Who were the best? Which had the most experience? Could any speak English? Late that afternoon he settled on a team of guides and porters, negotiated rates of pay, and agreed that they would set out at sunrise the next morning. Although they were a mere twenty-eight miles from the iconic ruins of Machu Picchu, it would take at least five days, the guides had explained. The archeologist knew this, but he had studied the route and believed it could be done in three days. Machu Picchu is nestled in the Andes mountains at 7,972 feet above sea level. But in order to reach it you have to climb to Warmi Wañuska at 13,828 feet before descending to the lost city. This path is known today as The Inca Trail. That evening he reviewed this final leg of the journey with his team and the guides. The guides explained that the trail would immerse the archeologist and his team in stunning landscapes, from rainforests to vast open valleys, deep canyons to high plateaus, rugged mountain terrain to cloud forests. It was because of these cloud forests that the locals named it “the trail above the clouds.” But the guides also warned that for all its beauty, the last twenty-eight miles of their journey presented an endless array of danger. It was a high-altitude battle against slippery rocks and unpredictable weather. A single moment of distraction could be fatal. There was also the risk of mountain sickness, which is brought on by rising and falling altitudes, and causes headaches, dizziness, shortness of breath, loss of energy, nausea, and vomiting. So, while this final stage of their journey was not very long it presented a myriad of challenges. Along the way they would pass a handful of other ancient Inca ruins, but the archeologist had no intention of pausing to explore those. At sunrise the next morning they set off. The archeologist immediately set such a grueling pace that even the guides struggled to keep up. His team and the porters trailed behind at a distance that increased with every passing hour. As the sun began to set, the archeologist and the guides agreed on a camp site for the evening. Twilight brought some of the team and porters to camp, but it was dusk by the time the last arrived. Around the campfire that night, the archeologist congratulated the team for making great progress, and explained that they were set up now to achieve his goal of arriving in Machu Picchu in three days rather than five. Early the next morning the archeologist and his team were packed and ready to go, but the porters refused to break camp. There was arguing between the guides and the porters, but the visitors could not make out what the locals were saying to each other. The guides walked away from the porters and huddled to discuss something among themselves, before returning to the porters. But the arguing immediately broke out again. The chief guide finally approached the archeologist and pulled him aside from the rest of the group. “We have a problem,” he began. “What sort of problem?” the archeologist asked. “It’s difficult to explain,” the guide continued. “I suppose it would be considered a spiritual problem.” “A spiritual problem?” the archeologist exclaimed with bewilderment. “What kind of spiritual problem?” “The porters refuse to move on. They say we must wait until tomorrow before we go any further.” “Tomorrow? That’s absurd. Why?” the archeologist asked indignantly. “They are afraid of. . .” the guide began to explain. “Afraid of what?” the exasperated archeologist interrupted. “They are afraid of losing their souls.” “How is that possible?” the archeologist asked, baffled and frustrated. “We went so fast yesterday that we have to wait for our souls to catch up.” The Opposite of Busy How far behind is your soul? We are so disinterested in being anything other than busy that there isn’t even a word for the opposite of busy in our common vernacular. This was a staggering discovery for me. I had never thought about it before. Language is powerful. Words have an extraordinary impact on what we think and how we behave, both individually and as a whole society. A thesaurus will tell you the opposite of busy is unbusy, but I have never heard anybody use the word unbusy. Think about that for a moment. The opposite of busy is so unimportant and so undesirable that we haven’t even assigned it a word in the language we use every day. It is also significant that the antonyms of busy are largely derogatory. Language also provides a unique window into what a culture values. Our radical cultural bias toward busy is displayed in its antonyms: idle, inactive, lazy, dormant, and passive. Nobody wants to be labeled idle, inactive, lazy, dormant, and passive. The language itself is a deterrent to living our lives at a sane and reasonable speed. So even when people aren’t busy, they often pretend to be busy. The contrast between the derogatory and undesirable antonyms of busy and the synonyms of busy is also worth noting. The synonyms of busy are positive and desirable: engaged, diligent, industrious, and active. It is easy to see how language itself can create a type of silent cultural peer pressure. We encounter a similar and perhaps more egregious situation as we explore the opposite of fast. The opposite of fast is slow. This alone carries a significant amount of cultural negativity. To be considered slow is to be considered ignorant, stupid, brainless, unintelligent, dense, dimwitted, or someone who takes a long time to understand things. Synonyms for slow can be broken into two groups. The first group demonstrates in part what we are striving for and includes: unhurried, leisurely, diligent, measured, steady, moderate, relaxed, unrushed, gentle, and thoughtful. The second group contains today’s culture’s opinion of slow: dull-witted, unperceptive, lax, lethargic, sluggish, stagnant, uncomprehending, and inert. All this leads to a crucial piece of information we need to understand if we are going to live at the speed of joy. The speed of joy is not the opposite of fast, and it isn’t the opposite of busy. We are not striving for the opposite of busy or the opposite of fast. We are striving for something altogether different. Our minds think: There must be an ideal state between busy and idle. There must be a state that allows human beings to thrive, an optimum state for human beings, a state that best facilitates human flourishing. There is such a state, but it isn’t found between busy and idle, and it isn’t the opposite of fast or busy. The ideal state that most encourages people to flourish contains intense activity and idleness, and everything in between; it contains fast and slow, and every state in between. It also includes states that are not in between fast and slow, but are essential to human flourishing: pause and stop. The speed of joy isn’t one speed. It isn’t one static level of activity. It requires the human heart and mind to discern what is best for each season of life, for each day and week, and for each activity each day. I know how disappointing this will be to some and frustrating to others. Somewhere deep inside we all want someone to tell us the speed of joy is X, so we can...