Slow It Down and Savor The Experience

The late baseball slugger Ted Williams was well known for his extraordinary focus while at the plate during his Hall of Fame playing days.  The claim was that he was so zoned into the small things that things slowed down for him to the point he could see the seams on a baseball, even if it was being thrown at him at over 90 miles an hour.

The great Ted Williams

During my sports journalism career, I heard the same thing said about great athletes in other sports.  The game in essence slowed down for them, despite its fast pace, so they could decisively make the key cut or move that spelled the difference between a great play and winning and the routine.

During my first extended visit to the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, the feel of the facility was different right from the beginning.  The waiting rooms are set up differently, in some cases with unfinished jigsaw puzzles on tables outside, for patients who apparently are there for some time, to a phlebotomist being on a first name basis with an older woman, from whom she was drawing blood.

The Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Strangely, it felt to me as if they had taken the clock out of healthcare and tried to establish a different model.  Another young mother with two children talked about talking radiation treatments in an environment she described as a “spa” not a hospital.

The visit seemed to echo the need for me to slow it down as well.  It’s time to deal with what really matters most, not with things of little significance. 

In doing so, perhaps  I can see the small things in life better than I have ever before.  My neighbor Kathy Daley, whose husband was a patient for 10 years at Huntsman, said I am going down a unique road where there will be sacred experiences between God and I, which in essence will sharpen my focus on what matters most.

I have often joked that I have two speeds, fast and extra fast.  As a consequence getting things done in a timely fashion has been extraordinarily important to me professionally and personally.  I suspect I have been so cued in on those things that I have been painful to those around me, especially my wife and children.

Walking now in uncharted territory against a foe I may learn to deal with, but never conquer, it’s time to change and slow things down: to enjoy each sunset, the smell of a simple flower, the smile and joy of a child and the simple wonders of this magnificent mortal experience. It is to see anew that the miracles of God are in the small details.

I suspect there will be pain and difficult moments, but that shouldn’t diminish the ability to enjoy the small things, it should only enhance it.