3 Ways To Slow Life Down

Oh hey, I was just thinking that it's been a long time since we did our last Sexy Potato. And what better movie to do than Richard Linklater's latest Golden Globe hit, Boyhood. Welcome my friends to another Sexy Potato. So Sexy Potatoes, if you don't know, is our segment where we take a movie and we don't review it in terms of how great the movie is. We look at it in terms of what life lessons we can get from that movie. And Boyhood is one of those films with about a hundred life lessons. By the way, if you want to read Steve's article on Boyhood, he has already stripped some life lessons from it and written an article about it. You can find that below this video. But today I wanted to focus on one Simple life lesson that I got from Boyhood. Boyhood is a movie that starts with a six-year-old boy and follows him through his childhood until he reaches his adult life. He begins college. You watch him age 12 years and it's the same actor going through this whole journey. And that's fascinating because that in itself is although he's acting you watching a real person grow up and go through his adolescent phases and go into adulthood and it's kind of weird. A lot of people see this film as a long film, it's three hours long. For me it wasn't long. I saw a guy's life condensed from 12 years into three hours and it scared the crap out of me. I first felt nostalgic as I watched it. because it made me think of my own childhood and the passing of the years and how you change and develop and get awkward and go through that and all of these different phases of life. It made me realize there are just such distinct phases to life in that way and just how quickly they go. After the nostalgia, I felt quite sad looking back and thinking of my own life having gone so quickly. And then I felt nervous because I suddenly realized while I'm sitting here reminiscing about the childhood that is over, I'm in another phase of my life right now that will also be over soon. That has an end. Every phase has an end. And sometimes we're so busy reminiscing about the phase that has already ended that we forget that we're in one right now. and that itself needs to be appreciated. We need to find a way to appreciate and be in the moment in the phase of life that we're in, because that too will pass. Seneca in his book, On the Shortness of Life, talked about life as being short only if you didn't know how to live it, if you didn't know how to use your time. And I think for us, when we get preoccupied with reminiscing or preoccupied with the future, We allow the present to pass us by and life then does become incredibly short. We do wake up one day and realize that a year has passed or five years have passed or a decade has passed. I took from this movie that we need to appreciate the phase of life that we're in. And that's all well and good. People tend to say things like that a lot. But I thought I'd also offer three tips for enjoying and appreciating the phase of life that we're in right now. The first one is to just pause for a moment and actually think of what's great about the phase that you're in right now, because I think every phase comes with its own unique advantages. Some people say school was the best days of your life. I think school has its pros, but I definitely think school has its cons as well. When you're out of school, you're into a new phase and there are new things to appreciate. The same is true in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, wherever. And I don't just define a phase by age, it can be by what you happen to be doing in that part of your life. But what's good about the phase of your life that you're in right now? The second thing I want you to do is think of something that's worth doing in this phase of your life. So instead of consistently thinking about what you want to do before you die, what would be worthwhile right now while you're in this phase? What while you're in this phase would aid your growth, aid your learning, or what would just feel like living in this phase of your life? And the third thing is to keep a daily list of what made today count. When I started alongside my daily to-do list, keeping a list of what actually made today count, sometimes it was when I got something done from my to-do list, I'd move it over to the list of what made today count. But it wasn't just stuff I got done, it was things that I thought or things I experienced or moments I had with people. I don't want this to be confused with saying, How many things can you get done in a day? Because productivity isn't the same as presence. It's not the same as being present as actually appreciating the day, appreciating the moment, feeling and sensing and enjoying the experiences you're having. those aren't always to-dos. What made today count? And in that way you will begin to appreciate every single day in this phase of your life instead of getting to the end of another year and seeing that that year just went by and you barely noticed it. So that's it. Three quick things to appreciate this phase of your life. If you haven't seen Boyhood, go and watch it. If you're like me, you'll feel sad. Because it is sad to see time go so quickly and to see someone just so swiftly move through their life and to see how quick that goes. But it also does give you such a tremendous appreciation of the time that you have now and how important it is to just try and slow it down as much as possible because this phase will be over before we know it. So that's it. I look forward to seeing you in next week's video. Keep following me. comment. Let me know what you thought of either the film or this video, and I will see you soon. Thanks, guys.