2012.

 
Already 3 days into our new 2012 year...wow!  I have a feeling this one's going to pass even quicker (if possible) than good ole 2011. 

It never ceases to amaze me how we have trained ourselves to live life at lightning speed. You can start your day already late for something....you've actually lost time before your body has even begun to fully function for the day....the 24hr clock we have created for ourselves to keep track of our appointments, meetings, never-ending lists of to-do's, classes, yoga, nights out, holidays, days off...and for $10 you buy yourself a book and cram as many of these things in as possible between the hours of 07:00 - 22:00 Mon-Fri but only 08:00 - 17:00 on Sundays - because according to mass agenda&planner producers nothing scheduled should happen between the hours of 22:00-07:00 Mon-Sat and Sundays deserve an extra hour of sleep and should end earlier than the other 6 days of the week. These missing hours in our leather-bound notebooks are reserved by society as private - blocks of hours you don't need to fill in with multicoloured pens (organized by shade) and highlight and underline all the important things you need to do that day/week/month.  And on top of busying ourselves with the task of actually filling-in, updating&ticking off all these things we actually COMPARE our schedules with those around us.  "Oh wow, you are soooooo busy" we say when someone digs around for their dayplanner only to open it up to 5 differently coloured & shaped sticky notes over top of their 'week at a glance' because they've run out of room to actually write directly on the page...and instantly we start to question if we're really living up to our potential and feel bad if their calendar is more full than ours.  We get ourselves into a frenzy and start joining and signing up for a million different things just so we can write it down into our daytimer so next time we sit down with that friend ours is fuller than theirs....(cycle repeat). *Thank goodness* for smartphones that have transitioned this lugging around of longer and wider and thicker daytimers to minutes of our lives lost while someone scrolls further and further down to open up their now modernly digital calendar to...again, schedule another dinner-date in their ever-busy lives.  I'm convinced that we are the only race that has managed to actually create a multitude of stress-related illnesses just by accepting and actually thriving of the need to "be busy".  I may be wrong on this...but I have yet to see a school of fish whip out their shells and jot eachother in for the next get-together.

Needless to say one of my FAVOURITE things here in Croatia is the LACK of these habits. It's not that people don't have jobs to be at, classes to attend, people to see, fitness activities to get to and chores to finish....it's just that they don't let it run their lives.  They are able to remember these things; they don't feel the need to buy a little book or download 7 different apps in hopes of consolidating all these different aspects of their lives.  They're able to just....

Be.  

to Live. 

Everything gets done in the end, maybe not quite at the mach speed as it does in some other places, but they live much more carefree.  They are less obese, less stressed and statistically less burdened by stress-related conditions such as depression, panic attacks, mental breakdowns etc.  I'm not saying these illnesses don't exist here, and I'm not saying these conditions are solely caused by...well, agendas...but I know - have seen, have experienced and have lived.... that a human without a device constantly reminding them of where they need to be and what they need to do there, has a more tranquil vibe and lives more in the moment.....than one who is 80% there, 20% editing and mentally adding things to their planner.    I'm just saying.

So, a toast to our new 2012 year.  A toast to spending the hours lost in 2011 to our daytimers, blackberrys & iPhones to time more in-tune with nature, with ourselves, with our surroundings, and with our life and the amazing people in it.

Ziveli!

xo