Slow down for your business travel?? Is there really such a thing as Slow Travel for business? Or are business people being targeted with make-believe “Slow Travel” business trip scenarios?
Now that is a serious question.
Is there a straight answer? Probably not. Simply because the answer is going to be a little of both. Yes and no.
Unfortunately we do live in a world where not all of the people possess hearts full of joy and compassion for their fellow man. We do live in the real world, and yes there are charlatans that walk amongst us.
But their business, is none of our business. Our business is to try and make our business trip one we can consider “Slow”.
A real, SLOW business adventure.
Because, hold on to your hats boys and girls…… Yes indeed, Virginia there is a Santa Claus. The mythical is not so mythical. By that I mean there is such a thing as “Slow Business” travel. 🙂
Depending upon your schedule (shockingly, slow business travelers will likely still have a schedule), your trip can be whatever you make of it even if you are on a fairly strict time constraint. Because Slow Travel is not always about the time itself. Often it’s about how the time is spent. In fact, in my opinion much of the slow methodology is not so much time oriented in so far as tossing your watch into a river. To me it’s focus targets the quality of a given period of time and my recognition thereof.
Whether it’s 10 minutes, 10 hours, 10 days, or 10 weeks. Maximizing the quality of that time in your life is of the utmost importance. When I first began learning about What “Slow” was all about from Geir Berthelsen (founder of The World Institute Of Slowness- www.theworldinstituteofslowness.com ), it quickly became apparent to me that it had almost nothing to do with the time itself.
It’s real value lies within my own personal happiness gained from the appropriate use of that same time.
In other words, an appreciation for what ever time frame you have allotted to you. Giving us the ability to truly utilize Slow Travel in the business world too. Because let’s face it, there’s not a business trip that any of us have been on where we couldn’t take one single minute to stop and smell the roses. Not one conference where we could have gone out in our lunch on the grass, listening to the birds in the trees, instead of working the crowd in a lunch room.
The same holds true in traveling to our business destinations. On any given business trip, with a little thought, we could certainly be a little more creative a lot more fun planning how we’re going to get there. There’s no reason why instead of the subway we couldn’t take a ferry or a boat if there happens to be water between us and our business destination. There’s no reason why we couldn’t take a train with a sleeping car the night before the big conference, instead of taking the 2 a.m. redye and showing up looking like we were mugged someone along the way.
Yes Slow Travel (www.slowtravel.org ) is about time. But it’s not about the quantity of time. Rather, it’s about your consciousness of its value and a specific effort to use it to the best of your ability, making it pleasant, calm, serene, and pleasurable. You can spend that exact same time racing, panting and stressing. Or, you can spend the moments making your life just a little better than it was before.
All on the company dime. SLOW is SWEET.
Learn more, visit www.slowtravel.com, www.slowtravel.org or www.theworldinstituteofslowness.com today. The true pioneers of the slow movement and the driving force behind the furtherance and education regarding a SLOW lifestyle overall.