How to live a thousand lifetimes

Don’t rush your life away

Apr 11, 2024

I don’t want to be the person who is constantly in disbelief of what day it is.

“April already?? Golly how quickly time flies!”

But since returning from my travels in late February and settling back into my routine, I scribble the date at the top of my journal every morning in shock at how quickly the days seem to be flying off the calendar.

Of course, time has never moved any faster or slower. My experience of it just changes.

It’s a paradox. If followed too militantly without any personal flourishes, the lifespan extension strategies recommended by Internet health experts will actually shorten my experience of life.

Since I’ve been home, I’ve fallen into a stringent routine that I hurry through with precision. Each day has a prescription: thirty minutes of journaling, two hours of writing, one and a half hours of exercise, an hour of walking, a cold shower, and so on.

I rush with an underlying feeling of overwhelm and impatience until I get it all done.

I’m too focused on staying in the right heart rate zone and making it to the end of my run to notice the trees bud and listen to the birds chirp. And gym workouts have felt like a chore to be hurried through and checked off rather than savoured.

Even worse, feeling rushed to complete the set tasks in my routine has carried over to the other parts of my day.

In the kitchen, I buzz around to prepare a protein shake with the speed of a chef in the middle of dinner rush. And when I get in the car, I behave like an F1 driver with roid rage.

Routines are necessary and can be good.

But if I reflect on my life and realize it was characterized by hurry, rush, overwhelm, and impatience, I would be regretful, no matter how long longevity protocols let me live or how outwardly successful I appear.

The number one piece of advice I’ve given myself since high school is “Slow Down.”

I’ve scribbled it on Post-it notes and stuck them around my room, used it as a screensaver, and journaled about it endlessly. But telling myself to slow down has been just as effective as telling my girlfriend to “calm down” when we get into an argument.1

When words didn’t work in our not-so-long-ago more primitive past, we used straightjackets. I can’t get myself to consistently or reliably slow down by simply telling myself to do so. I need to straightjacket myself into slowing down.

~~~

Last time you travelled or had a weekend getaway, did you have the experience of feeling like you lived an entire week in the span of one day?

Over the last two years, I’ve been on the road for 280+ days. And nearly every one of those days felt at least three days long. During those trips, I effectively extended my lifespan by time dilation while defeating all sense of hurry. The magic ingredient?

Novelty.2

Infusing novelty into my days, which travel effortlessly does, enriches the depth and breadth of my experience — I was doing lots of cool and unique things. Resultingly, it gives me the illusion of time passing slower. Plus when I do something novel, I never hurry through it.

I’m not going to try to live the rest of my life in foreign places. But if I can infuse my daily routine with novelty, I might slow down my experience of time while fending off my natural tendency to rush around overwhelmed all day.

But there’s a catch.

Novelty can be expensive. With an unlimited budget, novelty is easy to add in the form of new restaurants, sporting events, rock climbing gyms, nordic spas, theatre, stand-up comedy shows, and exercise classes.

The challenge becomes how to inject a daily dose of cheap and sustainable novelty that is realistic in the context of my messy, busy human life.

Slowing Down Strategies

The trick is to make things more memorable.

The more memorable the moment, the longer that period of time will feel.

Here’s how I’m adding a dash of novelty to make my days more memorable.

Allow for flexibility

When I create a stringent routine, I follow it precisely because failing to do so would mean I went easy on myself. That’s how my brain works.

I’m trying to create more flexibility in my days so I still do what I need to except in the style of a Parisian painter, not a German train conductor.

That means allowing for spontaneity within the structure and having open time slots each day to fill as I see fit.

Turn off your phone

Smartphones are like two-bite brownies. Once you start, it’s hard to stop.

When I spend time scrolling, I feel my life melting away faster than Frosty in the greenhouse.3

I try to stay off mine as long as possible in the morning, use Opal in the daytime, and go on Airplane mode in the evening. Though I’m far from perfect.

Change the order

I’m experimenting with changing the order I usually do things whether it be in the gym, kitchen, or any other aspect of my routine.

I’ve also been using my left hand more in the kitchen while cooking and cleaning to challenge my brain and force myself to slow down.

Small changes make a big difference.

Be a tourist in your city

I’ve spent thousands of dollars travelling to far away and exotic places while blowing off all my city has to offer.

I’m trying to sink deeper into the place I’m from. To understand the history and the forces that shaped it. The people and the food and the culture.

It’s been a lot of fun seeing the place I’m from for the first time.

Cook a recipe from a new cuisine

As a knowledge worker, I’ve come to enjoy cooking. It’s a lovely change of pace where I get to be on my feet and use the fine motor skills in my hands rather than sitting at a keyboard.

When I take my time with it, regularly cooking new recipes is a lovely hobby.

Take a long, slow walk

I naturally speedwalk everywhere I go. When I remember, I try to slow down and notice details on a street I’ve breezed by hundreds of times without seeing.

Leaving my phone at home and walking without music or podcasts helps me remember to ease my pace and take in my surroundings. Plus my brain needs time without stimuli to work itself out.

Volunteer for something you care about

I don’t volunteer often but when I do, I never regret it. In May, I’m volunteering at the Toronto Marathon and a Spartan Race.

Both will be filled with good vibes, great people, and a sweet molasses-like slowing down of time.

Do less stuff

There will always be more things I want to do than time available to do them.

Doing selectively fewer things enables me to take my time with the things that really matter and have richer experiences.

Bring a plus one

The most memorable moments of my life are created when I add friends and family to a novel experience. Those are the moments I’ll be playing in my head as I draw my final breath.

Some people die a thousand deaths while others live a thousand lifetimes.

Novelty is the magic ingredient in creating a life that resembles the latter.

What I’ve been up to:

As I wrote about last week, I’m doing a No Sugar Challenge this April along with a few awesome readers who joined me. If you want to join, it’s not too late! Just send a message in this Substack Chat thread to let us know you’re in then start sharing your no-sugar wins.
Taking a dose of my own medicine from this essay, I made Malaysian curry, homemade hummus, and pasta from scratch last week. It was delicious. Pasta and rice are not a usual part of my diet so both were a lovely treat!

I also went to an amateur stand-up comedy show on Tuesday with two pals. Admission was just $5 and it was a blast. For some cheap novelty and lots of laughs, look up amateur night in your city, call a few friends, and make a night out of it.
I finished the best non-fiction book I’ve read in years: The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. If you want to have a sound financial future, no matter your current age, read this book. It’s simple, engaging, and short and the most insight-dense book I’ve ever read.

Thanks for reading!

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