Hot Take: Millennials Need to Reclaim the Art of Savoring

Recently, I was eating dinner with a group of people I didn't know well. Everyone at the table was in their mid-to late twenties and were still trying to pound back drinks during our meal like we were in college. I had been slowly sipping on my margarita. It had been a long time since I had enjoyed one, particularly with the pandemic going on. As I enjoyed the taste with my pollo con crema, one of the guys heckled me to "catch up to the rest of us." I said: "Don't you ever just want to savor your food and drink without having an agenda to chug your way to being hammered?" He stared at me with some confusion as did most of the table. "Savor??? Ummmm why would I do that? Savor??" he laughed, and I realized in that moment how few millennials recognize the ability and art of savoring their environments.

As the 90s introduced faster technology, the art of a task or skill done slowly with intention has faded into the background. We want to catapult ourselves into whatever we want, the moment we want it no questions asked. So few things are handcrafted by us anymore that we fail to recognize the feelings of pride and gratitude that come with finishing a project. Musicians are a little more in tune with this as are spiritual workers and yogis, because they know their entire being requires this awareness. They know the process often outweighs the moment of completion. Instant gratification is like an orgasm, great for the moment, but when it is the only focus, there is too much pressure on the dopamine effect and less on the lurid process and foreplay there is to enjoy leading up to it.

Millennials have been dogged with focusing on "the next best thing" as my friend Brooke pointed out to me since birth. 2001 changed everything for us and our world as we knew it. Life became about pulling ourselves out of debt and hoping to catch up to the advantages our parents had in a more privileged time (well, if you were white anyway) which was my experience. We hoped engaging non-stop in the hustle and technological advantages we had been given would get us there. Although there are of course benefits to our tech savvy world that I appreciate, we have cast too much of our cares and hopes on it. Shouting into the void through a simple tweet instead of sitting down to internalize why we feel this way.

In 2019 before COVID-19 went into full effect, ASMR videos surged at an intense rate. The concept of ASMR had been around since 2009, but with our current economical and political climate, I believe our collective stress levels had us begging for more. We are desperate for something, ANYTHING that slows our internal anxiety mechanisms. I enjoy ASMR myself, but during lockdown in March, I realized my body and soul were asking for more than sitting on my phone. I needed a full sensory experience that wasn't only through a screen. This was when I began to write more, drew (poorly) what I thought my emotions looked like, slowly drizzled sauce on a homemade dish while holding a glass of wine. This little collection I was amassing of moments stayed with me. It caused me to reconsider how and why I had mowed through anything and everything before. What was I trying to achieve? What was I trying to mask? What is true relaxation really? Does my body even know how to register that concept?

If you find yourself reading this and thinking: "Well, that's all well and good, but how do I start?" I present to you examples from several different areas that have helped me:

1. Tik Tok has actually become a wonderful resource as more creators from all over the world display their process of relishing what they do. I have tested more ideas from that platform than probably anything else in years. I have to be careful how much time I spend on there after all, the point is to stay OFF my phone and more into my body, but it can be a good starting point.

2. In 2017, I visited Norway and Sweden and this was my first introduction to ideas like four day work weeks, socialized healthcare and communities that really support each other. It blew my mind that these people still had full busy lives that looked successful and abundant, but also had time to enjoy and rest. I have been researching this ever since. A particular Swedish practice called FIKA is a simple way to start practicing savoring your time. FIKA is an hour or two in the middle of the afternoon where people take a break and have a little something to eat and enjoy a coffee (or whatever mode of relaxation speaks to you). Savoring at it's finest, deliberately choosing to slow down your day. We often believe we don't have the power to control what we do and don't allow in our lives to help us relax, but we have more power than we know.

3. Sit down and light a candle, pour your favorite glass of wine, shut your eyes and blast Julie London's "I'm Glad There Is You." Everyone can appreciate good Jazz music. The mellow richness of the vocalist will wash over you like sliding into a hot tub. I equate sounds to feelings, so this really helps me get in that mindset of needing to slow down. Hearing the dips and smooth glides of a melodic line particularly when improvised can take you to another realm. Spending a moment in stillness with the right song and focusing on deep breaths, phone put away can clear your mind will awaken you to your own special ways of living a well intentioned life.

Of course, you don't have to try only these things, but for me they were a great starting point to allow myself to wake back up.

Try it out and let me know how it goes. Unlearning that the destination is the only thing that matters is a gift few come to possess, but I am hopeful as we soldier through the rest of 2020 and beyond, we are on our way to a new way of living.