Speeding through the yellow lights: Is today the day to slow it all down down?

I have been thinking a lot about slowing down lately.  Actually, I have been thinking about this most of my adult life.     
 
What do I mean by slowing down?  Working less?  Stopping to smell the roses?  Catching up with friends and family?  More vacations?  No doubt any of these things would improve our lives. So, why do we put this off?  We see warning signs all around; heart attacks, failed relationships; errors made in haste. Most of our lives are a steady stream of yellow lights that seem to be designed to deliver this simple message.  Yet as we approach the intersections, we instinctively step on the gas, promising to slow down next time.  Why is this so hard?

To be fair, there are a lot of things pushing us in the other direction; the need to make money to cover our spending habits, the gallons of caffeine we ingested earlier in the day, deadlines imposed by others, responsibilities to others, and the general feeling that the clock is ticking all of the time, to name a few.  If slowing down was easy, we would all do it and the world would be a much more peaceful place.    

Slowing down always seems like one of those things we can put off until tomorrow.  The urgent tasks of the day seem to always trump the deeper concerns about the quality of our life.  We know that a tragic event would awaken us to a new understanding, but most of us would prefer not to wait for that kind of wake-up call. 

I just passed my 56th birthday, and it is becoming increasingly clear that I will never really know how many yellow lights I have ahead of me.  So, rather than put this off another day, I am going to do something.  Maybe take a walk in the middle of the day; maybe sit quietly in my chair before I go to bed; perhaps call a friend or family member.  Somehow I will try to let the awareness of time marching forward remind me to stop and savor the moment rather than rushing to the next event.  Whatever it takes. 

And if the world does not fall apart, I’ll do it again, tomorrow.  Maybe in 30 days a habit will start to form.