Pause

We are obsessed with progress. We are obsessed with growth. We constantly are on the grind, constantly making one decision after another.

But is taking a pause such a bad thing? Let’s find out. Let’s take a look at one of the more ignored facets of life.

The Pause allows us to slow down. To reflect. To check ourselves before we act thoughtlessly. To give us a chance to be thoughtful instead

Darcy Luoma

Yet again, I have failed to maintain my consistency with writing these articles. But this time, this isn’t my fault. I have no clue where the last three weeks of my life went. I woke up everyday, logged in for work, logged out 11 hours later, and went to sleep. I ate in the middle of my work calls and showered whenever I had a 30-minute break in between two of them.

I am sure quite a few could relate with the previous paragraph. I mean, just think about it. If this isn’t a testament to the old phrase “time waits for no one”, nothing is. And since time doesn’t wait, we ought to continue chasing it (or rather our own tails). No one likes to stop anymore. Everyone wants constant motion.

Be it in the business world, where software updates come in every other week and hardware updates come in every year; or in the corporate world, where if you take a couple of days off, there is someone assigned right there to pick up where you left off and drive your project in to a new stratosphere.

If these examples haven’t hit home yet, let me bring out an example that is essentially ingrained in our lives, and could more or less be considered inseparable from our lifestyles currently. And most probably, you have it in your hand right now, and the screen is lightning your face as you read this article. Yes, I am referring to your cell phone.

Almost every app on your cell phone is designed in a way that makes you want to use it more and more, without stopping.

• Social media apps continually give you scroll worthy “posts” in the form of videos, images or the latest “shorts” format.
• Gaming apps are equipped with “levels” which make you stick to the game long enough to advance from one to the next; giving you a sense of accomplishment.
• Streaming apps give you “recommendations” of content you could consuming next even before you are done with the series you are watching right now.

All of these examples I gave have one thing in common. But before I divulge the commonality, I want to ask a quick question here, and I want you to be completely honest with yourself. Every time you “intentionally” choose to continue scrolling, play the next level or click on the quickly filling button that says next episode, how intentional is the choice, really?

Now back to the commonality. What is common between all these forms of so called “entertainment”? I’ll tell you how I have come to realize it.

There is no gap, space or “pause” between the way content is presented to us anymore.

Think about it. In today’s world, when we are constantly followed by stimuli in visual and audible format, reaching a pause has been rendered almost impossible. And what this lack of pause does is, it takes away our ability to make real, mindful decisions. Decisions that are more beneficial to us than the ones we take when we are on autopilot, being driven by these stimuli.

And these stimuli are becoming more and more complex, engrossing and for the lack of a better word, numbing, by the hour. With the advent of virtual and augmented reality, in addition to dealing with your noisy neighbor who has to play music in the middle of the night, we now have to deal with the VR glasses and headphones we have put on our eyes and ears with a view of a forest and blaring music recommended to us by an application, for which we have paid money to remove ads, so that we can listen to the music “without a break”.

I mean, is the “real” reality not enough anymore? Or is the goal is to ultimately replace reality with one which looks and feels better, but is completely out of our control? (A spooky thought, to me at least).

Anyway, I took a tangent, but let me come back to the point I am trying to drive.

Ownership of thoughts, creativity and oneself; all come from a pause.

So the next time you are about to make an indulgent decision, take a pause, and if you still decide to go through with it, at least you will be governing yourself, instead of an inanimate object. 🙂

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one.