Dear Reader,
There’s a peculiar madness that descends upon us each December. We race through parking lots, weave through aisles with our carts like stock car drivers, honk at intersections, and sigh audibly when someone ahead of us fumbles for their wallet.
This year feels even more frenetic than usual. We’ve transformed what should be a season of goodwill into something that more closely resembles a competitive sport.
The irony isn’t lost on me. Here we are, celebrating a season dedicated to peace, joy, and human kindness, yet we’re treating each other like obstacles on an obstacle course. We shove and push and jostle our way through crowds of people we claim to love during this season of love. The disconnect is staggering: we’re willing to treat each other poorly in our determination to treat each other well. Somewhere along the way, we’ve confused motion with meaning. We’ve mistaken busyness for purpose. But what if we chose differently?
What if we gave ourselves permission to move through December at a more human pace? To pause. To breathe. To notice. To let that other car merge in front of us without resentment. To smile at the harried parent wrestling with packages. To actually taste our coffee instead of merely consuming it as fuel.
These small acts of slowing down aren’t time wasted—they’re time reclaimed. They’re the difference between surviving the holidays and actually experiencing them.
Think about your most cherished holiday memories. They weren’t the ones where everything went according to schedule. They were the unplanned moments: the conversation that deepened when you stopped rushing, the laughter that erupted when you finally relaxed, the connection you felt when you were fully present.
This season, perhaps the greatest gift we can give ourselves and those around us is simply this: we can slow down. We can choose to notice the particular beauty of this moment, this interaction, this day.
The world will continue to spin. The holidays will happen whether we’re sprinting or strolling. But how we
experience them—with tension or with grace, with frustration or with gratitude— that’s entirely up to us.
The holidays will be over soon enough. Let’s not wish them away by racing through them. Let’s be here for them
—fully, completely, generously here.
After all, the people we’re rushing past today are the very ones we’re rushing to celebrate tomorrow. Perhaps it’s time we started treating them that way.
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