Amidst the pressures of excessive productivity and constant career progression exacerbated through social media, a trend of ‘slow living’ has emerged as a new lifestyle choice. It’s a call to slow down, emerging from the toxic muddle of social media and the desire to find peace away from the ambitious mindsets of our generation.
What is Slow Living?
Slow living is a mindful approach to life that brings us back to pre-digital age intentionality. Now more than ever, it can be hard to distance oneself from the constant noise of hustle culture seeping into all of our social media feeds, with images of ‘that girl’ and 5am morning routines being shoved down our throats with every swipe. Hustle culture creates pressure to ensure everything you do is productive, encouraging a constant trajectory towards financial prosperity and growth. It stirs sentiments of guilt and inadequacy when you inevitably cannot keep up with the unrealistic portrayals of extreme discipline and work ethic shown online. Slow living is a direct attempt to move away from this mindset of toxic productivity and live a more fulfilling life in the long term.
Slow living encourages depth and thoroughness over quantity and speed. It encourages one to notice the little things around them, rather than letting surroundings pass while their focus is glued to their work or distracted by what’s going on in their head. It is prioritizing connection over consumption and building long-lasting, fulfilling things in life that cannot otherwise be attained through wealth and corporate ladder climbing.
Slow Living Taken to the Extreme: ‘Tradwives’
Despite the positive intention that comes with this lifestyle choice, there are extremes on both ends of the spectrum. Hustle culture can be a method of inspiration, yet in an effort to empower females through social media presence and ‘strong’ female characters in film, there has become a toxic ‘girlbossification’ in society that insinuates if you can’t do it all, you’re not powerful in your femininity.
On the other end of the spectrum, people who have adopted slow living to an extreme level have been accused of becoming ‘tradwives’. A ‘tradwife’ subscribes to this 1950s housewife persona, taking on traditional gender roles of tending to the house, cooking, and taking care of the children while her husband works and financially supports the family. This lifestyle choice is not problematic if it’s a woman’s desire and choice to be a stay-at-home wife. What has been so controversial in the media about this slang term, however, is that it has also been promoting a culture of unquestioning compliance with their husband, reigniting antiquated patriarchal values where the woman is relegated to a life of docility and loses her autonomy. As a result, slow living has generated a disempowering connotation. Yet, it is fascinating to me that, ironically, these ideas are being promoted through popular TikTok accounts in which women are becoming financially autonomous and supporting their families through such teachings.
What Value Can We Take Away from Slow Living?
I recently read the memoir Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, which follows the author as he meets with his old dying professor for his last life lessons. Morrie claimed that his slow death revealed what truly mattered in life, and that he realized that everyone wasted their time worrying about the things that didn’t. That promotion they spent chasing, or the grade they obsessed over to the point of sacrificing their wellbeing, offered only temporary satisfaction. When it came down to Morrie, with his failing body and inability to perform simple tasks on his own, no amount of money he had gained, nor any award earned, was meaningful to him anymore—it was the people who did not leave his side even when he became incapacitated and appeared a shell of himself. Slow living seeks to make you slow down and notice what matters before we waste all of our time.
Ways to Incorporate Slow Living into Life at St. Andrews
Especially in the competitive environment of St. Andrews, it can be hard to adopt a life of slow living. Sometimes the best thing is to be intentional with the things that we do. Rather than sitting down at a meal to juggle eating, reading, and checking emails simultaneously, look up from your phone and be present in the moment. Take time to be curious about the people in your dining hall or get lunch with a friend at Old Union Cafe or Gorgeous with the intention of simply enjoying their company. Do something that forces you to be present in your body, such as the exhilarating shock of a sea dip followed by a trip to the sauna. Walk along West Sands without something playing in your headphones, and take time to notice the sensations that would normally be blocked out by music or a podcast. Join the yoga or dog walking society, engaging in pastimes that make you feel good inside, rather than the doom spiral of social media scrolling. Slow living, when used to approach life with intentionality and presence, can help make every day more meaningful.