Life seems to move fast. And unfortunately, our fast-moving, technologically hyper-connected and personally disconnected pace is wearing us down. Many people are living life as if it’s a race. And either directly or indirectly, we’re teaching the next generation that this is how life is lived. One of the many outcomes of this is that we’re in a near-constant state of partial ingestion. We’re taking things in cognitively, in the moment, but not integrating them at the level where what we ingest instructs or reorganizes our understanding.
This is a big topic, so what I’m inviting you to consider is a starting point. A simple practice.
Our need for assimilation
There’s something almost subversive now about pausing long enough to metabolize what’s happening around us and inside of us. Although our individual needs vary widely, most of us need some measure of ASSIMILATION TIME. Creating S-P-A-C-E in our schedule, our minds, and our lives is a sane response to an environment that rarely offers it.
Me? I’ve learned that if I don’t intentionally create time to assimilate life, life simply keeps arriving, arriving, arriving.
Another conversation.
Another insight.
Another project.
Another responsibility. Another loss.
Another decision.
Sometimes, I get so into whatever book I’m listening to on Audible that I’ll turn it on for even a 15-minute drive. Yet those short drives are often when I get some needed space in my mind. Eventually, it all…even the fun audiobook…begins to feel like trying to drink from a fire hose. Lots of water, but I’m not getting any of it. None of it is landing. I’ve come to realize that assimilation isn’t a luxury. Far from it. Assimilation is one of the ways that I remain fully myself.
As a general life approach, I refuse to let inputs just stack up unprocessed. Allowing for assimilation restores proportion to my life and reclaims my capacity. It lets signal separate from noise. It gives my own thinking a chance to exist alongside what I’ve taken in, rather than being continually overwritten by it.
And perhaps most importantly, it protects my inner coherence…my sense that my ideas, values, actions and perceptions are intertwining, as part of what I call “me.” Assimilation helps me respond from my own center instead of simply reacting to, or nodding along with, the loudest thing in front of me.
Returning to ourselves
Great news? My sense is that when we honor the need for assimilation, it doesn’t slow us down in any meaningful sense. On the contrary, it’s what allows anything real to actually take root. It allows for clear thinking.
Like anything worthwhile…healthy eating, exercise, meditation…assimilation isn’t something we accomplish once and check a box. Instead, it’s something we return to. Again and again and again. It’s about noticing when we get off track, and simply recommitting. That IS the journey. Not because we’re failing, but because we’re LIVING.
The world will continue to demand our attention. Our calendars will continue filling. Life will continue to hand us extraordinary joys, unexpected heartbreak, and everything in between.
So perhaps our intention isn’t to keep all of that from happening. Perhaps our intention is simply to create enough space that what we ARE living has a chance to become part of us, instead of merely passing through us.
Where might you need some assimilation time?
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