Slow Living Solutions is headquartered in the storybook town of Staunton Virginia, USA. It's no mystery how I ended up here, but no one saw it coming either, least of all myself.
Paulo Coelho has a great quote, "Maybe the journey isn't so much about becoming anything. Maybe it's about un-becoming everything that isn't really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place." I think this accurately describes my occupation over the past 15+ years. I've spent an exorbitant amount of time grinding on the proverbial hamster wheel to "make it" in Corporate America. There's been plenty of things to show for it, but feeling fulfilled hasn't been one of them.
As a natural change agent, bucking convention started as an unintentional pattern in my life and became more intentional as I learned to harness its powers for positive impact. It is of course, not without its challenges. Large organizational structures are deeply rooted in operational models and cultural conventions that limit how change can be implemented and to what effect. We all understand on some level that organizations are mini-societal structures. They require some form of hierarchy and collectively abided by rules to keep order. These governing rules are agreed to by the collective based on accepted principles and values. In essence, what Leadership (i.e. the governing body) means, entails, and looks like sets the tone for belonging to the tribe and how the tribe adapts to change.
When our personal values do not align to those of the societal structure we live/work in, is often when conflict arises. Environments of high competition and over-achievement or people pleasing left me drained and burned out. I couldn't deliver as a leader the way I believed in; known widely in organizational psychology as Transformational Leadership. I believe in establishing a clear vision that paints a picture for all of what is possible to achieve together. I believe in recognizing the gifts of other people and how they can contribute to something greater than themselves. I believe that establishing the right environmental conditions harnesses individuals' intrinsic motivation, which enables them to feel fulfilled by their contributions. But in my last position, I didn't have a clear organizational vision to paint for my teams or a cause to champion. I found it impossible to pull together a team dynamic without so much as a shared project to rally them around. I was lost... I cared about the people, not about the numbers, in an organization that rewarded micromanagement and overachievement in the name of organizational performance.
I'm fulfilled by human connection, not personal perfection. In a major metropolitan like Washington DC (where I was), the rat race to climb the ladder was pervasive. So not only was my career unfulfilling, but my environment at large was no longer conducive to the types of relationships that I wanted to establish, how I wanted to connect with the environment, and by extension, what was going to serve me mentally and emotionally for a well-lived life.
I was on the phone with my best friend from high school one day. I was telling her I just wanted to move to Scotland, marry a sheep farmer, and bake sourdough bread every day. Now this fantasy itself was more or less existential, but it begged the underlying question: What if I gave the white collar city race up? What if what I wanted was simpler, but deeper? What if it was rich in spirit over rich in wealth? What if I suspended my fears and disbeliefs in my ability to be self-financed, rather than being beheld to a company that didn't support my values much less myself?
And there you have it... I upended my life to buy my first house, in a town I had never been to, where I knew no one, to start a small business for like-minded people, on the staunch believe that I could create a better life for myself than the one I'd been living by default. This is what is at the heart of Slow Living Solutions: we don't have to live at the mercy of where we accidentally ended up according to what we either thought would make us happy, or we're told would make us happy. Your solution may come slowly, but the result is your design of a life well lived. Welcome to a blog that will chronicle how my solution is slowly manifesting itself.
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