The Ability to Slow Down and Enjoy Life

I discovered this during one of the busiest times of my life.

I’ve been a bit busy this week, road tripping through 7 European countries, almost one a day.

I’m helping film a documentary this summer all over Europe, so this is the scout trip, figuring out how and where we will do it.

Needless to say, I’ve seen a lot of people, and a lot of amazing sights. Two things I find fascinating to observe.

Within the first few days, I noticed something that alarmed me.

When confronted with a beautiful sight, such as a castle, cathedral, or the like, my first reaction was to pull out my phone and take a picture of it. I started wondering why, so I began watching other people.

Notre Dame, Strasbourg France

There were mostly two types. The one type lives here, so they walk past something like Notre Dame as if it’s the most normal thing ever. But the other type spends most of their time looking at it through their phone camera. They snap selfies and spend time looking at their phone to make sure the picture turned out well.

Sheesh, tourists… Wait, that’s what I’m doing. Uh oh.

So I started intentionally waiting to take pictures until I’d fully seen it myself. Until I’d been fully present with whatever was capturing my attention. Slowing down. Noticing and appreciating.

I’m not gonna lie, it was a struggle.

Castle? Picture.

Overlook? Video please.

Fancy food? Don’t even get me started.

I only started allowing myself pictures if there was something specific I wanted to remember in the photo. A memory. A feeling. A powerful moment or interaction. Little by little, I began to notice a few differences.

The first thing that happened was that I started having really powerful experiences in the places we visited. I was no longer looking for “pretty” I was looking for “meaning.” I wanted to be moved by what I saw, and that’s what started happening.

A little clock in Notre Dame

A quiet forest in Switzerland

A WW2 bunker in the Czech Republic

The second thing that started happening was that I started noticing details that otherwise would have been lost on me. Details in the architecture, location, city vibes, people, mountains, culture, etc.

This is the one that I appreciate the most. We love stories of people who gain an incredible eye for detail, or an awareness to detect what normal people can’t. Someone like Spiderman, or the TV show Limitless, where something is unlocked, and their attention for detail helps them extraordinary.

I found this feeling from a book that I read as a kid about reading body language. I felt like a superhero because suddenly I noticed a whole new world. Things that I was previously oblivious to.

In some ways, that’s how I feel now when I slow down. I start to truly see, as if I woke up and unlocked something. I appreciate beauty where others see a flat Instagram post. I see what others are oblivious to. I feel things that used to escape my notice. It feels incredible.

If you slow down as well, you’d probably see beauty in something different than me. That’s the awesome part of attention and slowing down. Beauty and meaning become personalized. You can’t recreate it for someone else, it’s yours alone.

The best part? I don’t need a massive structure or view to blow me away. Sure, it helps, but these are the same feelings and moments I’ve felt in my hometown. By slowing down, I can start to see it.

It’s magical.

Investing in the expansion of my attentional space has been one of the most rewarding uses of my time, as noted in this post. There are only 2 ways to do it. Here’s how to expand yours.