Stop and smell the roses…
Globalized processes have caused us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. Therefore, we have come to possess a need to see immediate results.
Nowadays, there’s a movement in Europe named Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food and spend time with their family, and friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart, Fast Food, and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.
Basically, the movement questions the sense of “hurry” and “craziness” generated by globalization, fuelled by the desire of “having in quantity” (life status) versus “having with quality”, “life quality” or the “quality of being”.
French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8-hour workweeks and have seen their productivity driven up by 20%. This slow attitude has come to the notice of the USA, the pupils of the fast and “do it now” brigade.
This no-rush attitude doesn’t represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, attention to detail, and less stress.
It means reestablishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the “now”, present and concrete, versus the “global”, undefined and anonymous. It means taking humans’ essential values, the simplicity of living. It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter, and more productive workplace where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do.
It’s time to stop and think about how companies need to develop serious quality with no rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence.
In the movie, ‘Scent of a Woman’, there’s a scene where Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, “I can’t, my boyfriend will be here any minute now”. To which Al Pacino responds, “A life is lived in an instant”. Then they dance the tango!
Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious to live for the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists.
We all have equal time throughout the world. No one has more or less. The difference lies in how each one of us does with our time. We need to live in each moment. As John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”.
Stop and smell the roses…