The meal is done when the last bite is swallowed. Not when I shove it in my mouth, get up and start washing dishes while chewing. Sit, chew, swallow, rest, drink. Pause. Then get up. The benefit far outweighs the cost: twenty seconds of calm leads to more presence of mind, a settled self, greater enjoyment of lunch, and overall – calm.
I’m doing this in other disciplines, too. Instead of wrapping up conversations with the usual Midwestern visual cues – angle hips out, slow inhale, glancing up and away, “Well, yeah, great seeing you” – I’m staying in it till the conversation really runs its course. Again – twenty seconds or so is all it takes. Instead of feeling like you’re running atop a rolling barrel, the day has dozens of marked moments of presence and silence. I feel more grounded, joyful, and integrated.
This is one example of an internal shift that changes external interactions. As many people are writing and revising their 2025 goals, examine the subtle ways your pattern of living may not be serving you. As James Clear writes in Atomic Habits, small behaviors – driven by subtle internal beliefs – have the power to shift our entire perspective and experience.
2025 is the year to thrive, no matter what is happening in the world, and however your context defines “thriving”. Devoting our attention to those closest to us – and directing it away from an overexposure to traumatic news – will be a prerequisite to living well in turbulent times.