Yesterday I found myself stuck in Balerno for 3 hours with nothing to do.
Some readers may be immediately rebelling at my use of the word “stuck”, but I use it because that was how I felt. It had been a busy day so far, it wouldn't end until late, but between 4:15pm and 7:15pm I was left to my own devices. Not enough time to go home, nothing with me that I could work on. Stuck.
So I went for a walk along the water of Leith, because it's a pleasant walk and it would be a way to pass the time.
As soon as I was out of earshot of the traffic I considered using my phone – seeing whether any friends or family were free for a chat. No doubt if my phone was high tech enough to let me check my emails I would have considered that too. But my battery was getting low, so my phone stayed in my pocket. I should surely, I thought, just be able to walk for a while and enjoy the surroundings.
I then realised that I was storming along as if I was late for an appointment. So I made myself slow down. It took an effort of will at first: walk slowly, notice the cow parsley, notice how each flower head is made up of many tiny flowers, listen to the water, wonder what another plant is, listen to the birds.
But within about ten minutes it was as though my whole brain had changed gear. Taking in my surroundings was no longer an effort, it was coming naturally. I was ambling along, drinking in the leafy green light, the musical chuckling of the river, the bird cries and the occasional rustling and darting of startled wildlife hidden in the undergrowth.
I realised I was feeling better than I had in ages.
Which got me thinking about an article I'd read about the Greek Island of Ikaria.
Ikaria is one of the places in the world notable for its inhabitants longevity – and not just their longevity, but their quality of life into old age. Researchers looking at such places have come up with two common factors...
Some readers may be immediately rebelling at my use of the word “stuck”, but I use it because that was how I felt. It had been a busy day so far, it wouldn't end until late, but between 4:15pm and 7:15pm I was left to my own devices. Not enough time to go home, nothing with me that I could work on. Stuck.
So I went for a walk along the water of Leith, because it's a pleasant walk and it would be a way to pass the time.
As soon as I was out of earshot of the traffic I considered using my phone – seeing whether any friends or family were free for a chat. No doubt if my phone was high tech enough to let me check my emails I would have considered that too. But my battery was getting low, so my phone stayed in my pocket. I should surely, I thought, just be able to walk for a while and enjoy the surroundings.
I then realised that I was storming along as if I was late for an appointment. So I made myself slow down. It took an effort of will at first: walk slowly, notice the cow parsley, notice how each flower head is made up of many tiny flowers, listen to the water, wonder what another plant is, listen to the birds.
But within about ten minutes it was as though my whole brain had changed gear. Taking in my surroundings was no longer an effort, it was coming naturally. I was ambling along, drinking in the leafy green light, the musical chuckling of the river, the bird cries and the occasional rustling and darting of startled wildlife hidden in the undergrowth.
I realised I was feeling better than I had in ages.
Which got me thinking about an article I'd read about the Greek Island of Ikaria.
Ikaria is one of the places in the world notable for its inhabitants longevity – and not just their longevity, but their quality of life into old age. Researchers looking at such places have come up with two common factors...
- they are “slightly austere environments where life has traditionally required hard work”. (In Ikaria most people grow their own food, and when asking various nonagenarians and centenarians if they took regular exercise the interviewer became used to hearing the answer “yes, digging the earth”)
- There is a strong sense of community and family. Neighbours and families help each other out, do repairs for each other and socialise together.
George Osborne, a few months ago, was outlining his vision for an “Aspiration Nation” but it strikes me (leaving the details of the budget and government policy aside) that there is a major problem with this particular aspiration of his.
To aspire to something is to want to achieve or gain or become something that you currently don't have or are not. Now there are plenty of good objectives to aspire to, and plenty of good reasons for aspiring – the foremost of which being that if we didn't aspire to anything, nothing would ever change for the better.
… can you hear the “but” coming?...
BUT if we are an “Aspiration Nation” we are a nation who always wants more, a nation that is never content and therefore never happy. That makes perfect sense from the Chancellor's perspective because our economy as it currently operates depends on people always wanting more. Perpetual economic growth can only be achieved by constantly producing and selling more, which means either we need an ever-increasing customer base or customers with ever-increasing appetites and desires (and of course they have to get the money to pay for what they want from somewhere). Perpetual growth in a finite world is of course, when one thinks about it, impossible. Nonetheless this is the mirage we as a society are currently frantically chasing.
Now I'm not suggesting we can or should overturn our economy overnight. But perhaps we as individuals need to think about what we really need in life to be happy.
Several years ago people were surveyed about their actual incomes, and what income they felt they would need to be comfortable in life and have all the things they wanted. The uniformity of the responses across the range of incomes was striking: no matter what their income, people felt that if they had about 30% more, they would be comfortable and content.
The evidence from Ikaria would seem to suggest that what we need is simply time with our family, our friends, our neighbours, regular physical exercise and contact with the natural world – even if it's just “digging the earth”.