This year my New Year's Resolution is to eat slower.
That’s it. That is all.

And I know it's early, and I know it's silly.

And so I guess that is not it. All. Which is to say there is more to it:

But see:I eat fast.
I've often noticed this, looking around me, but nowhere was it more notable than on our recent trip to Mexico. We would sit, meal done, watching other families and couples, who had entered before us, still casually working on their food while we were already proud members of the clean plate club.

Yep: we eat with a certain excitable determination, bound and driven to get the tasty into our mouths lest turn out to be a mirage.

And I really mean no judgment, on a general level, as I consider the speed of our dietary consumption. I think it's cultural, and perhaps a bit of a reflection of our extreme enthusiasm for...nutrition. We aren't birds. We like food. Hell, I love food.
I would never strive to be one of those people who barely pushes their food about and dissects it and proclaims it "fine".

But as I sat there, every crumb eaten or scattered, a veritable battle zone of eat or be eaten, while others still casually speared a banana and placed it delicately in their mouth, or sipped slowly on their margarita, eating one chip at a time, I began to wonder whether there is something more to it.

Most things I really like I consume with a speed and intensity perhaps worth examining. Coffee. Good food. Good wine or whiskey. I don't necessarily have too much, but what I have I have quickly. When I want it, I want it right then, and then I want it in me. And even though I know I want to savor it, there is an certain anxiousness about that first drop, and then about making sure I get what I aim for and get it all.

So there it is: anxiety.

And so I wonder if maybe I shouldn't try eating slower. OR even, really just try to slow down, in general. Slow down the consumption, slow down the acquisition. Just. Slow. Down.
Find a way to remove an expediency that has worked its way into my life where I crave the next thing so desperately that I am not even present during my consumption. Slow down the absorption of something so it lasts longer. And finally acknowledge that I don't need the thing I am enjoying, but I can enjoy the thing I am having.

This is hard for me. I talk fast. I think fast. I multitask and I move on to the next project when I am not even half done with the first. I am, unsurprisingly, just a bit neurotic.
And I don't get more done because of it and I don't enjoy more of life's pleasures because of it, and I am certainly not in danger or missing my next meal, or cup of coffee or drink if I don't get it and get it down.

So basically, my resolution is to examine some of my more basic habits and attitudes that add anxiety to my life where there need be none. To attempt to subtly change my processes so I experience things as a more peaceful and organic process.