Is it just me or is the world spinning faster and faster?" a friend asked the other day.
"It's not just you," I replied. I've heard many people say the same these last few years.
For years we've talked about the hamster wheel, that feeling of running and running without quite knowing where we're going – or how to get off. The hamster wheel is still there, but lately it seems as if someone has installed a turbo motor in it.
AI. Technology. Constant connectivity. New tools, new expectations, new possibilities. Everything seems to be accelerating. We can do more, know more, reach more people and produce things in minutes that used to take us days.
Which, rather ironically, doesn't seem to have given us more time. It has just made the wheel spin faster. And made it even harder to get off.
It's made me think of Stop the World, I Want to Get Off, the 1960s musical with Sammy Davis Jr.
Imagine if we could? Just stop it. Jump off. Find somewhere comfortable to sit and let the damn thing spin without us for a while. Preferably somewhere with a nice view. A glass of wine wouldn't hurt either.
We tend to think of taking time off as something we do when we need to recover. We work hard, get tired and eventually allow ourselves a holiday, hopefully before reaching the point where the first three days are spent horizontal and incapable of conversation.
But what if we didn't always wait until we needed to recover?
The sweetness of doing nothing
In Italy, where I live, they have a wonderful expression: il dolce far niente, which means "the sweetness of doing nothing." It sounds wonderfully indulgent, but it turns out there's some pretty good neuroscience behind the wisdom of doing less.
Research shows that sustained stress can impair some of the brain functions we rely on for attention, judgement and flexible, reflective thinking. When we're under pressure, our brains become more occupied with dealing with whatever is immediately in front of us, making it harder to step back and see the bigger picture.
Which makes perfect evolutionary sense. If a tiger is chasing you across the savannah, it's probably not the ideal moment to contemplate what your purpose is.
Your tiger may look slightly different these days. It might be an overflowing inbox, a deadline, three WhatsApp groups and the unsettling feeling that everyone else already understands the latest AI development while you're still trying to figure out the previous one. And while our brains know perfectly well that an email isn't a tiger, the stress response triggered by modern life can still be very real.
What's interesting is that our brains don't simply switch off when we do. Research into what's called the default mode network suggests that when we're not focused on an external task, our brains are still busy with things like reflection, memories, making connections and imagining the future.
Perhaps that's why the idea we couldn't come up with after three hours at our desk suddenly appears in the shower, on a walk or over a long lunch when the conversation wanders somewhere nobody intended it to go.
And yet we've become remarkably good at eliminating these supposedly unproductive spaces. We listen to podcasts on our walks, check our phones while we wait and squeeze three emails into the ten minutes between meetings. Even our downtime has become rather busy.
Changing the rhythm
Perhaps occasionally getting off the wheel is less about doing nothing and more about changing the rhythm. Having time for a long conversation, creating something, moving your body, exploring somewhere beautiful, laughing a lot and enjoying the company of people you might never otherwise have met.
That's very much the spirit behind the Chill Connect Create Camp I'm hosting in Tuscany next May. Imagine a week of beautiful surroundings, morning yoga or tai chi, long lunches, good wine, creative exploration and conversations that sometimes go surprisingly deep. There is plenty to enjoy and experience, but we deliberately leave room for spontaneity, quiet moments and the pleasure of simply being there.
Enough to inspire you, but not so much that you need another holiday to recover. And plenty of room for il dolce far niente, of course.
Perhaps that's something worth giving yourself, wherever you happen to be. A little time when nobody needs anything from you, there's nowhere you have to be, and you can simply enjoy being alive without feeling you should be doing something else.
And Tuscany certainly isn't the worst place to jump off the wheel for a while.
So if, somewhere while reading this, you found yourself thinking "Ohhh. I think I need this...", you can read more about the Chill Connect Create Camp here.
If Tuscany isn't on your list, perhaps just find your own way to jump off for a while.
The world will still be there when you get back.
And I don't think it will have slowed down.
