Thai editorial: The how and why of 'Slow Life'

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EDITORIAL
The how and why of 'Slow Life'
The Nation

Fad or reaction to the social media era, it's a concept of living worth grasping

BANGKOK: -- Social media users have been promoting the "slow life" concept for a while. One thing you need to do to better embrace this concept, rather ironically, is turn off social media as much as you can.

When you pay more attention to things "closer" to you, the rest, they say, will pretty much take care of itself. When you turn away from temptation, which is abundant on social media, you may have won half the battle.

The question is, how? Social media has been pervading many aspects of day-to-day life. Latest figures show that of the nearly 40 million Facebook accounts in Thailand, some 33 million are being accessed on smart phones.

That simply means social media users are following people closely everywhere they go. All the time people see what other people have, where they have been, and how much fun they are having. Social media can make people feel discontented with what we have - and they want more.

As we can see, promoting a slow life on social media is a questionable fad that in many cases is intended to make others feel dissatisfied with what they have. A slow life is not working less and travelling more.

A slow life is truly knowing your priorities and rethinking the definition of your own happiness. A slow life is caring less about money and being happy with what you already have.

The trick is that you must never compare yourself with others. Each person has his or her own slow life. All slow lives are different.

To some, spending more time with family is the top priority. To others, reading more and travelling less may constitute to a slow life. It's not a slow life if you travel more, work less and have one eye on how many countries others have been to.

There are a thousand things we want to do. If we know we can't do them all but still try doing them all, it's not a slow life. But the slow life concept is not anti-progress. It's about finding the right balance.

It promotes the idea that, in today's world, many people are like war-horses with the sides of their eyes blocked so they can see only what's in front of them. The horses may charge ahead and achieve something finally, but they never know what they miss out on along the way.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans, John Lennon said. The thinker, artist and songwriter told us to live more in the present and be less worried about the future.

Lord Buddha said the same thing more or less. He emphasised staying content and conscious in the present, a teaching mistaken by many as anti-evolution. Buddhism's key principle is simply not seeking things that we don't really need.

It's human nature to "compare". On the plus side, this trait has given birth to inventions and led to academic or sporting excellence. But comparing also can cause problems. However, whereas the virtues and shortcomings of doing this is debatable, the merits of having the right balance is undisputed.

Humans are wanderers and explorers, Carl Sagan, another great thinker, said. One may argue that he was an anti-slow life man. His real thinking, though, was against misguided competition, which he said led to prejudices, fervent hatred and all kinds of worldly problems. He promoted true compassion and true unity, which is all but impossible to achieve if we don't slow ourselves down considerably.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/The-how-and-why-of-Slow-Life-30271144.html

-- The Nation 2015-10-19

[simonuk]

Some nice food for thought there.

[Toknarok]

Well if the Junta were to introduce a 'single gateway' that might slow things down a bit.

[ChrisY1]

Did the junta write this piece?

[fang37]

Slow life is the only life - get out of the fast lane.

One of the reasons I relocated.

[AZBill]

Love the slow life! Been living it happily for years and agree it's the way to go. No upside in the rat race.

[Thian]

Plent of slow life here in BKK!

Traffic jams, full parkinglots, long qeueu's, small sidewalks, sleeping shopowners, no pricelabels.

Yes i know where Swampy is.

[NongKhaiKid]

The slow life is being promoted by social media users and now it all makes sense why so many walk around at less than crawl speed in irregular patterns that a drunk would be proud of while bumping into people and objects.

Why, well because all have their heads down totally engrossed with their phones.

[chainarong]

My fast lane is Face book, when I am out of Thai the Phit crew send me update pictures of my dog and I can see if she is going alright , so in that regard I am in the fast lane , not what F/Book was designed for but hey no apps on my smart phone either, all turned off , send and receive calls and SMS that's all , now that I have given you all the secrets of the slow lane, have great week .

[ratcatcher]

Love the slow life! Been living it happily for years and agree it's the way to go. No upside in the rat race.

Even I completely agree.

Edited October 19, 2015 by ratcatcher

[Thian]

The slow life is being promoted by social media users and now it all makes sense why so many walk around at less than crawl speed in irregular patterns that a drunk would be proud of while bumping into people and objects.

Why, well because all have their heads down totally engrossed with their phones.

I also started to walk slow and stop all the time in Thailand.

It's because i hit my head many times to lowhanging stuff on markets/malls.

Hitting my head is one thing but many times they even have very dangerous steel pins coming out of the umbrella's.

[houlicha]

Did the junta write this piece?

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that there is not a single member of the junta who could write that well.

[steve73]

I read somewhere years ago (not sure where, or from where it originated):

"Happiness is wanting what you have, rather than having what you want."

and it's a lifestyle I've been content with here in Thailand ever since.

[jollyhangmon]

Meanwhile elsewhere:

[uSofA/UK/world] Both Twitter as well as Facebook: new record highs - more klicks from NSA and GCHQ than from regular users - by far!

[uSofA/world] Mark Zuckerberg permanently closes his facebook account, last entry: 'Hell, what entirely useless <deleted> came up with that pathetic waste of lifetime, just shoot him on sight without warning, pretty please with sugar on top'.

[Srikcir]

"Buddhism's key principle is simply not seeking things that we don't really need."

Like Thai democracy?

[Krataiboy]

A slow life is predicated on having enough time to think through one's priorities. Difficult for most of the younger generation, i would have thought, when every spare moment is squandered on exchanging the latest digital images of their crushingly boring lives with other smartphone and iPad addicts.

One wonders what kind of world we will have half a century hence, when instant, digitally recorded and cloud-stored images are likely entirely to have replaced the need to have a memory - and possibly even a brain.

The robots waiting in the wings must be licking their lips.

[MisterTee]

Love the slow life! Been living it happily for years and agree it's the way to go. No upside in the rat race.

Agreed.

Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat.