I know there’s no point bemoaning things lost to us from an earlier age in time. Life was different yesterday, and it’ll be different in other ways tomorrow. The world will continue changing because that’s what the world does. And mostly, it’s a good thing. Progress.

That said, there’s something gone that I think we, as individuals and as a society, are missing. I guess you could call that something stillness.

We live in a frenetic age. In so many ways, it’s become rare, if not impossible, to sit still. If there’s an empty slot of time, we rush to fill it. If there’s a vacation marked on our calendars, we hurry to find a new and ever more exciting way to spend it. Despite all our modern conveniences, our to-do lists grow longer instead of shorter.

With travel so easy and convenient compared to previous eras, many people commute long distances to earn their livings. Many also travel for recreation, far more often than used to be the norm. While it’s wonderful to be able to connect with others who live far away, constant motion deprives us of the chance to spend quiet time with those who are nearby. And even when we are together, we don’t always avail ourselves of the gift that togetherness ought to provide. We’re too busy looking over each other’s shoulders at the next thing barreling down the tracks. And there always is a next thing.

Children used to be a breed apart, a group for whom time meant nothing. Summer days, no-school days, any kind of days, flowed seamlessly from one game to the next until our mothers called us home for supper. When I used to go to bungalow colonies as a kid, my parents preferred a place where there was no structured day camp. We got to run and play and devise our own entertainment all day long. And what fun it was!

Today, kids’ lives are much more regimented. We’re ambitious to let our offspring fulfill their potential and make good use of their talents. It doesn’t hurt that their busy timetables afford us time to attend to our own. All of this is indubitably good. But there’s such a thing as overdoing a good thing. And sometimes it feels as if we may be doing just that.

Our busy-ness, though it often comes from a positive place, can also be detrimental. On the domestic front, for instance, we’ve upped our game to the point where simplicity is looked at askance. Houses must be professionally decorated and wardrobes meticulously coordinated. Multi-course gourmet Shabbos and Yom Tov fare has become the norm. And all of that’s fine, except for the time and energy that it steals from everything else… not to mention the toll it takes on our nerves, stamina, and even sometimes on our shalom bayis.

Another example is the world of medicine. Where we once had only a single general practitioner to address our medical issues, we now have a plethora of specialists available for consultation. The growing list of medical niches means a growing list of appointments. For someone charged with caring for a large family or aging parents, that can add up. Yet another good thing with the potential to pull us into a million harried pieces…

A Tangled Tapestry

Once upon a time, you knew your neighbors as well as they knew you, because all of you, and your parents and grandparents, had lived side by side forever. Now, old friends are threads to be picked up occasionally, when time and location permit. The tapestry of our lives has grown more tangled. And sometimes a little threadbare.

I know that shtetl life has been romanticized almost out of recognition, but there’s something to be said about staying in one place, with one group of people, for the entirety of your life. Our present-day reality includes a lot of picking up and moving on. New jobs, new neighborhoods, new people to incorporate into our lives. More breadth of experience, certainly. But perhaps at the expense of sacrificing some depth?

All these new beginnings can be exciting, but they can also be stressful. There’s a need to prove ourselves, and to sell ourselves, repeatedly. No sooner are you settled in one job or one location than you start wondering if it’s time for a change. There are so many options open to us that, instead of providing a sense of space that comes with having choices, they can grip us in a stranglehold of indecision.

It’s hard to relax without being internally bombarded by a host of things that need doing. I love crossing things off my list, and the sense of accomplishment that comes with that. But somewhere along the way, I’ve lost the ability to just peacefully… sit. Does anyone relate?

Jigsaw Pieces

Fed on this frenzied lifestyle diet, society as a whole and the people within it can start to feel fragmented. As if we’re a sum of many parts, each of them committed to one small area of responsibility. This person knows one aspect of me, that one another, and a third something else entirely. We show once face to each, until we begin to wonder which is the most authentic.

Even with our nearest and dearest who know us the best, we can find ourselves compartmentalizing. Doling out portions of ourselves as time and context permit. Ten minutes with this child, ten minutes with that, a date night with a spouse you rarely get to see, let alone have a long, meaningful conversation with. Our parents, siblings and friends get pieces of us when we can spare the time.

When life is so fast-paced and multi-faceted, it’s not easy to hold onto your sense of yourself as an integrated person. Instead, we can feel like a mass of different jigsaw pieces, each of which we pull out of the bag at the appropriate moment. I know it’s been said before, particularly in Erich Fromm’s The Art of Being, but important truths are worth repeating: it’s important to move our focus at least occasionally from doing to being.

When we fill our kids’ lives with non-stop structure, and our own lives with non-stop movement, we rob them, and ourselves, of something precious. Time to really be with each other, and with ourselves. Time to get in touch with our neshomah. To be actively conscious of the simple, awesome fact that we exist within Hashem’s embrace. Time to sit still and just be.

There’s so much beauty and connection waiting to happen, both with other people and among the flying fragments within our own heads. Talks to be had, ideas to be explored, hands to be held and smiles to be shared.  So many mysteries of the human heart waiting to be unraveled. Untapped layers waiting to be excavated. Untested frontiers of friendship and possibility waiting for a free moment when we can advance unhampered to meet them.

Maybe it’s time to slow down and seize the moment. We don’t want to wait until life forces us to slow down. Right now is the best time to carve out the slower-motion space we’re so sorely missing in this frenetic age.

Right now might just be the best time to catch our breaths and be.