CONVERSATIONS WITH CARL HONORÉ
B Y M A E M A Ñ AC A P - J O H N S O N
Carl Honoré, TED speaker and author of In Praise of
Slow, decided to put on the breaks of his hectic life after a
worsening back pain. For years he had carried on a “quick fix”
mindset without stopping to truly identify the problem
causing his physical discomfort.
“I was looking at instant solutions and they weren’t
working,” he says. The need to slow down brought on by a
physical pain, along with a desire to write a how-to manual on
taking things slow, sparked the beginning of his latest book,
The Slow Fix: Solve Problems, Work Smarter, and Live Better in a
World Addicted to Speed.
PULSE: For some people, “slow” is a bad word—it
could mean being lazy, not fast enough to keep up
with change, etc. In your own definition, what does
the word “slow” mean?
Honoré: Slow is definitely not all the bad stuff that people
associate it with. There is a deep and abiding taboo in our
culture against the very idea of slowness. But to me, slow is,
in essence, about doing things at the right speed—doing
them mindfully. It is about doing things not
as fast as possible, but as well as possible.
Slow is really about the idea that faster is
not always better.
In many ways, I think, slow is a state of
mind. Do you arrive at every moment thinking: “Am I going to do this thing as fast as
possible or as well as possible?” If you go with
option two, then you’re slow.
P: Why is it important to slow down?
H: I think it’s important for so many reasons, and
one comes from a pleasure point of view. We race
through our lives instead of living in the moment, and so many
pleasures require you to live in the moment, to take the time to
engage with whatever it is you’re doing rather than just racing
through the finish line. I think there’s a lot more pleasure to be
had from slowing down and living truly, rather than living fast.
By slowing down and reconnecting with our inner tortoise,
we also become a lot more productive and creative, a lot more
able to speak smartly and make fewer mistakes from a work
point of view. After a certain point, too much time pressure or
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rushing shuts down our creative faculties. When we slow
down and take the time to let the mind wander and get into a
physically relaxed state, we tap into those deeper reserves of
creativity.
From a health point of view, there’s no question that when
people move in a fast-forward pace, it’s often the body that
pays the price. We feel badly, we don’t sleep enough, we are
caught in a fight-or-flight mode—and all of that
wears upon us physically.
P: How can slowing down impact our relationships?
H: One of the things that gets sacrificed on the
altar of speed is human relationships. We just
don’t have the time, energy or patience to cultivate those deep friendships, deep bonds with
family or romantic relationships. We’re all so
rushed, and it’s when we slow down and take
the time to be with people—to be with them,
listen and connect with them deeply—that we
flourish. I think this is something that we lose in this fastforward, do-it-all-at-once and multitasking culture of
distraction. We’re alone together. We’re all in the same physical space but are all on our phones or laptops. We’re not
connecting.
Fast also tends to be selfish. When we get caught in a
fast-forward mode, we end up in our little individualized personal tunnels of speed wherein the only thing that matters is
our own to-do lists and agenda. We become self-obsessed.
When we slow down, we become more communal.