Edgar S. Cahn is a leader in the “slow movement” campaign that urges people to slow down for the sake of our health and well being. The Slow Movement is comprised of activists promoting the idea of intentional laziness.

Edgar Cahn created TimeBanks USA, a non profit group that treats time as money in a modern day barter system. For example one member may buy groceries for a stranger in exchange for someone else walking their dog.

I’m all for slowing down. I want to enjoy my life and prefer to keep things as simple as possible. There’s just one problem with the idea of an actual “Slow Movement”, well there’s actually more than one problem but I’ll stick to one right now, trying to coordinate with someone to walk my dog while I do their grocery shopping is not really keeping things simple. It doesn’t matter if both of us are registered as part of a barter exchange, it’s just too complicated and full of potential drama to try to deal with strangers and personal business. I don’t even like members of my own family doing my grocery shopping - nor do I like to do theirs. There’s always something wrong, something missing or not fresh enough. No my idea of keeping it simple includes limiting my dependence on others or involvement with their drama.

The “Slow Movement” is one of those nice sounding ideas until you actually try it. I like the idea of practicing random acts of slowness - and I think everyone deserves to slow down and enjoy life, as long as you’re not in the car in front of me.