A slow, simple life might be a virtue

Little “pause habits” are doing wonders for my life.

Photo by Manuel Liniger on Unsplash

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” — Socrates

Faster. Efficient. More. That’s what life feels like now. The pressure to keep up is relentless. You wake up, check your phone, rush through breakfast, skim the news, answer emails, jump into work, and before you know it, the day’s gone. We’re always rushing. We fill every free time with tasks, distractions, and noise. Even our downtime isn’t really down. Where’s the space to just be once a while.

Where’s the time to enjoy life?

But what if the opposite is true? What if slowing down is the real virtue? What if a slow, simple life is more meaningful? When we’re always moving, we don’t have time to ponder, to reflect, or even to notice what’s happening around us.

Slowing down is intentional living.

You start paying attention. You notice the details. The simple things worth taking in. That simple attention shift brings you back to the present. The idea of a slow, meaningful and simple life goes back centuries. The ancient Greeks had a word for it: “eudaimonia”. It literally means ‘good soul’, ‘good spirit.” It’s often translated as happiness, but there’s more to it than that. According to Plato and Aristotle, it means living in alignment with your true self with purpose and balance.

The Stoics believed in this too. They valued self-control, reflection, and simplicity as the keys to a good life. They weren’t pursuing more and more, at the expense of health– they stripped life down to what mattered most. Epicurus argued that happiness comes not from wealth or status but simple pleasures — friendship, thought, and a calm mind. In fact, the more you pile on, the harder it becomes to focus on what actually brings joy.

One of the greatest thinkers who spoke about simplicity was Henry David Thoreau. To experience a simple life, he spent two years living in a small cabin near Walden Pond.

He wasn’t advocating isolation but rather a life stripped of unnecessary distractions. He wrote, “Our life is frittered awayby detail…simplify, simplify.” His point was clear — when we cut out the noise, we make room for meaning. “As you simplify…