Intentional

Today, I joined the ranks of millions of interwebbers around the world...and went high speed.  Fiberoptic, to be precise.  And while it's been frustrating a handful of times to do some of the work I do on dial-up with staticky phone lines and limited actual function, I already miss it.

I've been high speed for about six minutes.

There are people who believe they need everything to be fast, but I'm not one of them.  I don't need to be connected all the time.  I don't have mobile media.  I don't even text.  That's right.  I don't text.  I have a cell phone for emergencies, and go with far too many unused minutes a month than I should, given what I pay for the measly service.

It's just that I like to take things slow.  I like time to think.  Time to relax.  Time to breathe.  I like time to take it all in and, if necessary, split my brain between here and there.  I don't want to do two things at once.  Or ten things at once.  I want to do two things together, bouncing back and forth because that's how I roll.

So what I'm faced with now is an opportunity, an invitation, and a challenge.  This is a time that I have to make a choice and start being intentional about what's important to me.  Intentional about slowing down, for one thing.  Intentional about creating space.  Intentional about creating time.  And you'd think having the ability to do things faster would create time for me, but the exact opposite is true.  When everything around me moves faster, I feel like I have to, as well.  Or I feel like I already am and maybe I can't slow down.

But slowing down is who I am.  It is in me.  Thus, I'm already looking for ways to create that in my new environment.  To appreciate the capabilities of doing some tedious duties a little quicker and embrace what that may open up for slowing down.  To appreciate that now, when I finish a large design file, it doesn't take me longer to email it to a client or a printer or a ministry leader than it did to create the thing.  To appreciate that now, when I hear that really awesome song on the radio, I can use a service and stream it on my desktop to hear it again.  To appreciate that now, I can use my home phone and my interweb at the same time, and my grandma can start calling me again.

Yet not go overboard and think that everything has to be this way.  Not everything has to be fast.  Not everything has to be this instant.  Not everything has to be here.  Now.

Because there still has to be space for the here and now.

I think so many of us get caught up in this digital, high speed world at our fingertips.  We get hung up on having anything we want in the very minute that we want it, and we miss out on what's right before our eyes.  It's easy to log in and shut out, tune in and tune out until one day, we wake up and realize the world has passed us by and we're longing for the simple joys.

I am keeping those simple joys.  I am making the space for them.  Not because I have to any longer, but because I value such things.  I value the simple things and the slow life, and I will not be giving them up for the luxury of on demand.

Right now, I'm here.  Right here, it's now.  This is not a moment I'd give away.

But to keep it, I will have to be intentional about it.