Slow down to smell the roses

TOGETHERNESS: As you get older you realise that it's not always the big ticket extraordinary experiences of life that matter.PHOTO/THINKSTOCK

WHAT ON earth happened to 2014? I remember waking up on New Year's Day 2014, going to the beach, and then suddenly I was up a mountain snowboarding and then I was getting excited about summer coming again. Before I knew it 2015 had snuck up on me and had slapped me in the face.

As a child I remember the days and months rolling on by like a movie in slow motion, but everything nowadays seems to be in fast forward. So as we venture into 2015, I ponder how we can slow things down a bit and make time to stop and smell the roses.

One important focus for me in 2015 is to try and get the right balance in how I spend my time. I remember my hubby saying to me in my mid-20s that you need to slow down and smell the roses. I replied that I had done that already and they smelt fantastic but what were we going to do next?

Now I get what he was on about. When I smell the roses nowadays I am increasingly more present in the moment. Whether it is actually flowers I am smelling, or having a conversation with a friend, or reading with one of my kids, I really try and connect in with that moment, rather than rushing through so I can get to the next thing. As I have said before, life is a collection of moments, to get the most out of life I think you have to hang out more in these moments, rather than thinking "what's next", as I used to do.

I saw a great example of how to slow down time from an old friend of mine I visited recently. She experienced cancer a few years ago, at the ripe old age of 40. What a miserable 40th birthday present that was. But I think when this happens everything gains perspective.

So my friend refuses to get caught up in the mania of life. She is precise in how she allocates her time and to me she seems to get the perfect balance between 'fun', 'meaning' and 'purpose' in her life.

Fun is the time she spends playing with her kids, meaning is the time she spends cuddling and chatting with each of her three boys each night before bed and purpose is the time she spends with her clients and improving the quality of their lives.

I think as you get older you realise it's not always the big ticket extraordinary experiences of life that matter in bringing you joy, it is also the everyday experiences that bode well for gutsy happiness. A key to slowing things down I think is to engage more fully in the bits and pieces of life.

Savouring each of these experiences is also another key to slowing down 2015. Rather than rushing from one activity to the next without a pause I plan to revisit past experiences with a little more attention. I will go over photos with my kids and recount the experience. Hopefully we can elicit some of the emotion we felt at the time and in a way prolong the experience.

Here we are mid-January and I am determined to slow it down. I shall enter 2015 with gratitude for what has been, savour the good memories and work more on engaging with the everyday experiences. I have realised there is never enough time in the day to do all that you want to do. Sometimes you just have to plan what is important then just work everything else around that.

Good luck, everyone, for a slower 2015!