From Mallorca to Zürich untangling my Idea of Time

The second week of April, I spent only three days on the island of Mallorca. Originally, I had planned to stay longer, but I decided to leave the island earlier and return home — realising what I needed at that moment and not being shy anymore to make decisions that come from a bigger place of self-love, self-respect, and truly respecting my needs. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have acted like that. Back then, I would have stayed, ignoring my authentic feelings, which would have ended up in conflicts within myself — neglecting who I really am — and also in conflicts with my environment and with people I care deeply for. That’s one thing we learn as we get older: we know better what is best for us, and, in the end, also for others. Another reason why getting older is actually a great thing, despite what Western culture keeps signalling us.

At the same time, I fully enjoyed the little time I had there on the Balearic island — standing in full bloom, in for me the best season there is: springtime. I also challenged myself a bit to be more present in the moment. When I deeply realised that a lot of my thoughts are about the future, not about what I am doing right here and there. The book Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman which I was reading at the time, helped me to observe and resonate with how my endless occupation of planning, structuring, and trying to be most efficient in what I do, is actually hindering me from enjoying, relaxing and de-stressing. I realised how much I’m focusing on where I am heading — planning the next week, the next month, the next year — and as a result, I often find myself living partly in the future. And that's such an abstract thing to do, because the future never happens the way you think it will. The time spent planning, actually never happens the way you imagined. I still believe that planning and thinking ahead makes sense — but only to a certain degree.

Realising that our society rewards us so much for how much we can squeeze into 10 to 16 hours — getting up early, doing sport, going to work, meeting friends, caring for our relationships, walking the dog... The thing is: these activities just keep getting more. And the better we get at optimising and becoming more efficient, the more we feel the need to fill every little hour between morning and night. But what does all of that even mean if we can't feel it?

If we can't enjoy it?

If our minds and bodies don’t even have the time to process everything, and our memories can’t even save it anymore — because it’s all just too much, too fast, too overstimulating? I could go on endlessly with this thought. But I will stop here — and come back to the actual thing I am writing about.

Planning should not come at the cost of your health or your relationships! And I observed within my own behaviour, sometimes it really does. I catch myself not being able to really listen to something important a person was telling me, because I was too distracted, thinking about something in the future — and many times in the past, that I wasn’t even conscious about it. That realisation woke me up in a sense.

And instinctively, from a deeper place, I started to understand why diving, breath-holding, swimming, nature, and yoga are touching me so profoundly. Sometimes you don’t know why something feels so magical until your mind is able to give it a name.

This is also what this video I am sharing is supposed to transport: not just beauty — but the feeling of weightlessness, of water, of being completely in the present moment. Of getting back in touch with your body sensations. Of coming back from the mind into the body. Of healing.

The little video session was in 17-degree cold water and I spent 45 minutes in it. Even though I was freezing like crazy and couldn’t feel my fingers and toes for some time afterwards, it was worth it.

Worth it for my nervous system — my pulse slowed down significantly during the session, as I later saw on my Garmin dive computer — to disconnect, to reset, even just for a few precious moments where I wasn’t thinking about planning, about what might happen next, or about any of those imagined threats that only exist in a future that may never come — if we would only dare to stay in the present.

In a world that’s running faster and faster, driven by the tools of efficiency and optimisation: Internet, ChatGPT, emails, messages, video calls… you name it. One really important time management strategy is to not get lost in managing the time. Instead take the courage to be be slow. Love fully. To breathe.

Tell me, what have you been really slow lately?