Slow Down To Live More

What if the fastest way to feel better isn’t faster at all? On a solo drive from Chicago to Flagstaff along Route 66, I kept catching myself trying to beat the ETA, race the clock, and turn every mile into a metric. Then the open road—and a few ridiculous roadside stops—reminded me: you don’t get extra points for arriving early, you just get more tired. So I tested a different rule set. Stop when hungry. Rest when tired. Choose the safer workout. Take the scenic detour for a laugh. The world kept spinning, and my shoulders finally dropped.

We dig into why slowing down feels suspicious, especially for those of us raised to earn rest only when everything is done. I talk about urgency as a default setting, how busyness gets mistaken for worth, and the quiet fear that pausing means falling behind. A slow-rolling house on the highway becomes the metaphor: it kept moving while I paused, and yet I passed it again—proof that pace is less linear than we think. We walk through practical, low-drama strategies: leave earlier, say “let me think,” take mental health days without backfilling them, and let silence do its work in conversation. Your calm does not need to match someone else’s chaos, and someone else’s poor planning doesn’t become your emergency.

There’s also the deeper payoff: discernment. With age comes the ability to choose fewer, better plans, protect energy, and notice who and what actually feels good. I share the travel choices that prioritized safety over ego, the inner voice that got louder when the schedule got lighter, and the reminder that what’s meant for you won’t pass you by because you paused. Speed is optional. Presence is not. If you’re craving permission to breathe, this one’s your green light.

If this resonated, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s always “on,” and leave a quick review. What’s one thing you’ll do slower this week?

Chapters

• 0:06 Road Trip Check-In
• 4:26 Why Slowing Down Feels Wrong
• 9:20 Lessons From The Road
• 14:45 Permission To Rest
• 18:36 Fear Of Falling Behind
• 24:50 Practical Ways To Go Slower

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

Hello and welcome to AG Naper Sissies. My name is Marcy Backis, and I am your host. Well, hello, my friends, and welcome back to AG Neighbor Sissies. I want to start today by saying something that might make some of us a little uncomfortable. Slowing down does not come naturally to most of us. Let me say that again. Slowing down does not come naturally to most of us. Well, and and it's a good thing and a bad thing, I think. As you all know, I have been on a road trip. I started this week. I left um Chicago Sunday. I am now in Flagstaff. So I've gone, I think, 1600 miles, something like that, all by myself. I have loved every minute of it. I've listened to a ton of things on the radio. I have seen lots of things. I was in the middle of a police chase coming into Albuquerque, which was crazy. I watched a guy split the line with a car, not a motorcycle, between two cars. It was insane. It's been lovely. Everybody has been super kind. I've stopped at a Bucky's. I've been there a couple of times. I had dinner at the world-famous Big Texan steakhouse, and I didn't eat any meat, which is pretty funny. I had a green salad and a side of fries. So, you know, and I have not eaten out except for that time. I brought cottage cheese and yogurt big containers I had at home that I hadn't opened yet. And that's what I've been eating. I've had some snacks though, so there's no weight loss here, but uh not big snacks, just a few snacks. And I'm in love with popcorners. They are my new favorite snack. They're crunchy and low calorie, lower than potato chips. Let's put it that way. They're not nothing. But I've been really enjoying myself. Uh, I don't have a problem being with just meat. And I know for some people that's really hard. I don't. I find things that entertain me. I have worked out in the morning and I've worked out in the evening at all of my hotels because sitting in a car for hours a day. The first two days I did eight hours each. And then the last three days have been like five hours with my stopping and everything. So yeah, I'm here in Flagstaff at a beautiful. I stayed at All True by Hilton's. They are a great road trip stop. They're about$100 a night, which is great. Free parking. They have great gyms, they're clean, they're newish. They're about five years old or newer. Um, the rooms have hard floors, which I like, no carpet. And uh what else? They're just they have a little fridge, a mini fridge, but they're very bare bones but nice. I'm sitting at my desk here at my true in flag staff. This one was great because it had a car charger that actually works on my car because my car is a 2018, and the chargers are all now getting fancy and they don't work on my car. But I'm lucky because my car is a it will run all electricity, all gas, or it'll run in hybrid mode. And yesterday I ran out of electricity forget because I forgot to hit hybrid mode and it charges itself. It takes a while and you have to go a little slower, but um, it did charge itself, and then I finished off my charging here. So that's kind of a rundown of what I've been doing. Um today I will be driving into my girlfriend Annette's in Vegas, and tomorrow Lynn, my sister Cindy, my girlfriends um Debbie and Mary will be flying in for my 65th birthday, which is this Sunday. We have all kinds of fun things planned, girly stuff. And then on Sunday, the big, the big draw is um the Wizard of Oz in the sphere. So looking forward to all of that. Um I don't know, just been a great trip. So, but today we are going to talk about um why slowing down doesn't come naturally and the art of going slower. And I know that's kind of counterintuitive because I've been going really fast, like over 80 miles an hour the whole way here. But the average, the the speed limits are 75. I've been, oh, and that's the other thing. I've been going on Route 66, which is the hundredth anniversary of Route 66, which I did not know. But the fun thing is Route 66 starts in front of the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, which is my main street. So on Sunday I drove down my main street, Michigan Avenue, and started on the um right at the beginning of Route 66, which is kind of fun, kind of kitschy. And today I will be on Route 66 till I peel off towards Vegas. So it's been a lot of fun. There's been a lot of special things happening on Route 66, but we're gonna talk about slowing down. So hang in there. I'll be right back with that. Uh, grab yourself a cup of coffee, whatever it is. If you're on the road, focus on the road. All right, the art of going slower without feeling like you're falling behind. So slowing down does not come naturally to most of us. In fact, for many of us, slowing down feels suspicious. Like we're doing something wrong. Like something's gonna tap us on the shoulder and say, excuse me, you're falling behind. And yet here we are. If you're listening to this on a walk or in your car or sitting quietly in a cup with a cup of coffee, I want you to notice something. All right, are you ready? Nothing bad is happening right now. And that's kind of the point. Today we're talking about the art of going slower and how to do it without that nagging feeling that you're somehow falling behind. Honestly, we're our our own worst critics. We are so hard on ourselves. Trust me, there is no like slowing down police. There's nobody that's going to come after you. But most of us grew up believing that faster was better. I mean, especially for us, the everything, the space race, breaking the sound barrier, all these things were happening. And get there faster, do more, handle it, push through, don't stop now. Rest was something you earned after everything was done. Let me say that again. Think about it. Rest was something you earned after everything was done. That's how we grew up. And since everything was never done, well, it doesn't look like we rested much, does it? I'm gonna step out on a limb and say, especially women of my generation. We felt the need to do it all, we did do it all. We wanted to work, we wanted children, we wanted a family, we wanted it all. And so we never got it all done. So resting was something that uh never really happened. We became very good at urgency. Urgency became our default setting. Even when nothing was actually urgent, we rushed our conversation. This is a big one. We rushed meals, we rushed decisions, and we rushed joy. And something along the way, busy, I'm sorry, somewhere along the way, busy started feeling like proof that we mattered. Oh my gosh, is that not the truth? Busy is what mattered. So we try to slow down now. Our nervous systems don't trust it. So now if you're retired or if you're working less, or even if you're working and you're older, when you're done working, how is it to slow down? Is it easy for you? I bet it's not. So now when we try to slow down, you want to know why? Our nervous systems don't trust it. Slowing down feels like we're tempting fate. But here's the truth. And I've learned the hard way. Most of what we rushed through didn't need to be rushed at all. So let me tell you what the road is teaching me. Being on the road has reminded me of something I forgot when life was moving too fast. You don't actually get more points for getting there quicker. Now, although I have been driving fast, I'm going to tell you I have made many little fun stops simply to see the world's largest belt buckle or at Uranus for fudge. Now, that place is hysterical. It's in Missouri, and it's like a nine-year-old boys' joke factory, is what it is. The things they say to you when you walk, welcome to Uranus. They say it to everybody coming in. We hope they packed your fudge gently here in Uranus. They say things like that. Now, it's just like a nine-year-old, again, nine-year-old's joke factory, but it's more fun. And I stopped there. The world's largest belt buckle. I saw that. I I actually drove 12 minutes back, 12 miles back, to the Buckeys because it was on the other side of Amarillo from where I was and had to go see what a Bucky's was. If you don't know what a Buckeys is, look it up. There are these giant gas stations with tons of food. It's just a crack up, tons of gas pumps. I stopped in Winslow, Arizona to stand on a corner and take my picture. So I have learned that slowing down is okay. Now, that's not to say when I get in my car and my car says you're going to get there at 3:30. There isn't a part of me that's like, I'm going to beat that. But I have resisted that on this trip. So you don't actually get more points for getting there quicker. You just get more tired. On this trip, I'm not white-knuckling it. I'm not pushing past my limits. I'm not proving anything to anyone. And that is the reason the first two days I did my longer drives. I was fresh, it was the beginning, and I did it. The last three days, the time is four and a half hours, but it's taken me five and a half, six hours. Um, and I did that purposefully. I stop when I need to stop. I eat when I'm hungry. I rest when I'm tired. And guess what? The world kept spinning. There was nobody at my end stops. It's a hotel waiting for me. No one cared when I got there. Now, today I'll be going to Annette's. I gave her a time. I may adjust that today. I have to do all three of my podcasts, so I want to get those done this morning. You know what's funny is I was planning to do them last night and I was exhausted. After I got here and I went to the gym, I repacked my car because I needed to repack my car. Um, I went to the gym and I was exhausted. I took a shower, I crawled in bed, I fell asleep, I woke up and and and I was feeling guilty for not doing my podcasts. But again, I was tired. I've driven 1600 miles. I'm 64 years old and I'm by myself. All of those things add up. It's okay, Marcy, to be tired. I had to give myself permission last night to not do my podcasts. I don't get paid for these things. Something I do out of joy and love for my friends and my listeners. Um, I know I am a morning person, so I knew this morning I'd get up and I'd feel better. Plus, I'm doing them on my laptop, which is 10 times harder than doing them on my desktop. But nonetheless, here I am. I woke up this morning, had a couple cups of coffee, and I'm at it. And the world keeps spinning. Nothing fell apart last night when I went to sleep. That realization hits deeper than travel. It hits life. What if we applied that same permission to our everyday lives? What if we stopped rushing our conversations, stopped rushing decisions that are not ready to be made, stopped rushing ourselves emotionally? Slowing down doesn't mean stopping, it means listening. And then there's that fear of falling behind. Let's talk about the real reason slowing down scares us. It's not the pace, it's the fear. It's that fear that everyone else is moving ahead while we pause. Now that's kind of funny, I'll tell you, because um, on my trip from Amarillo to Albuquerque, they were moving like a mobile home house. I passed that house five times. Five times I had to drive by that scary house like I was gonna crash, but I had to pass it. The reason being is because it kept going and I kept stopping. But because it was driving slower, because it was a freaking house, I would end up passing it again. And I just would laugh to myself. Finally, the last time I waved to the driver, don't know if he saw me, but that's because I allowed myself to stop. It was moving ahead, didn't care. I paused. So the fear that everyone else is moving ahead while we pause is really might be true. The house was moving ahead, but who cares? The fear that if we don't keep up, we'll be left out. And the fear that rest equals irrelevance. Let me say that one again. The fear that resting equals irrelevance. Guess what? It doesn't. But here's the thing that no one says out loud. Half the people who look like they're ahead are exhausted, overwhelmed, or frankly, quietly unhappy. Slowing down doesn't mean you've lost momentum. It means you're choosing direction over speed. At this stage of life, direction matters more. You don't need to do everything. You need to do what actually matters to you. And I'm gonna tell you something. Um, after this summer, when I tripped, and I didn't trip walking, I tripped standing and turning to walk. I tripped over a piece of plastic, this, those little bumps on the corner, and I fell headfirst into the street. Headfirst, yeah. I can remember my head bouncing on the sidewalk. I wasn't going fast. I was paying attention to traffic, I wasn't being irresponsible. But I'll tell you the one thing on this trip. When I get out of my car to pump gas, to go into the gas station, to use the restroom. Most anything I've done, I've done it slow, intentionally, keeping an eye on what I'm doing. Because not paying attention has big consequences for us at this age. It really does. So you do need to slow down. So, what does it actually look like? Well, it looks like what I just said. Slowing down looks like on this trip, I was very intentional about what I'm doing. One of the things you all know is I work out in a pool. Well, three out of four of these hotels have had pools. I've chosen not to work out in them because nobody was in them. If I slipped, if I fell, if something happened to me in that pool, nobody was there. Less chance of getting hurt in the gym walking on a treadmill. Was the risk zero? No, but it was less than the pool. So I chose the gym with weights and a treadmill. People would walk by, they would look in. In the pool, it was a little off-centered to the door. I something could have happened to me and nobody would have known. So I slowed down and made a choice. Slowing down isn't dramatic. It looks like this leaving earlier so you're not stressed. Saying, let me think about that instead of answering immediately. That's a big one.

SPEAKER_01: 17:32

Just because somebody asks you a question. Oh, I had to cough there and I don't have a cough button because I don't have my microphone.

SPEAKER_00: 17:43

So leaving earlier so you're not stressed, saying, let me think about that instead of answering immediately. We always think we have to answer immediately. You know, let me think about that. I'm not sure. I need a little bit of time on that one. Giving an answer like that is just fine. Just because somebody asks you a question doesn't mean you have to answer right away. Taking a day off without filling it with errands, let me tell you that again. Sick days can be a mental health day. They can. At the end of life, those of you that are still working, when you retire, nobody goes, oh yay, look at Marcy. She didn't take any of her sick days. Nobody gives a crap. Take your sick days, use them as mental health days, and don't fill them with errands. Letting silence exist in a conversation. That's a hard one. Craig's really good at that one. I am not. Letting silence exist in a conversation. What does slowing down actually look like? It looks like fewer plans, but better ones. It looks like choosing quality over quantity. It looks like trusting yourself enough to pause. And here's where I get a little bit sassy. If slowing down makes other people uncomfortable, that's information, not a problem. And also remember, somebody else's poor planning does not make an emergency on your part. Let me say that again. Somebody else's poor planning does not create a problem or an emergency on your part. If slowing down makes other people uncomfortable, that's information, not a problem. And your calm doesn't need to match someone else's chaos. Your calm does not need to match someone else's chaos. The gift on the other side of slowing down. Obviously, if we're doing something to better something, there needs to be a gift, right? There needs to be a better part to it. So once slowing down long enough, something Beautiful begins to happen. You start noticing things again. You notice how your body actually feels. You notice who it feels good to be around. At this age, I only surround myself by people that make me feel good. If you're not going to add to my joy and allow me to feel good, I don't want you in my life. I do have a lot of people in my life, and they are all wonderful. I have wonderful friends, family members that I choose to have in my life are the ones that make me feel good. They're the people that are there cheering me on. My girlfriends in Chicago, I've been sending pictures of my trip. They seem to be enjoying it. So during the day when I'd send them something, the positive feedback I got from them filled me with joy and brought me joy on my trip. You hear your own thoughts more clearly. Let me tell you, my thoughts have been loud and clear on this trip. And what I heard is, Marcy, you're living a great life. Last year was really hard. I did hear that. I went through last year. I had a lot of shit go down last year. And I am a really strong human being. I heard that on this trip.

SPEAKER_01: 21:29

I heard you're a good friend, you're a nice person, you're fun to be around.

SPEAKER_00: 21:36

I heard don't be so hard on yourself, Marcy. So slowing down and hearing your thoughts, because I've been alone for since, let's see, how many money do you do visit? Five days so far. I'm ready to be around my friends now. But I'll tell you what, I've heard my own thoughts very clearly. Slowing down gives you discernment. I was also on a discernment committee this year. I've done a lot. Discernment is one of the greatest gifts of aging. This isn't about doing less because you can't do more. It's about doing less because you finally know better. I almost think the older we get, the more we have to prove, and we don't. I think we think we do, but we don't. We've made it this far. You don't have anything to prove to anyone. You are enough. Slow down. You move too fast.

SPEAKER_01: 22:46

You gotta make the morning last. Remember that song? It's true. Sip your coffee, enjoy your life.

SPEAKER_00: 23:00

If you're in your 50s and you're still working and you're still doing it for the man, start to slow down. You have nothing to prove to anyone. If you're still working and you're in your position, you're there for a reason. Because you're good. You're good at what you do.

SPEAKER_01: 23:17

You love what you do. So slow down. All I can say is slow down.

SPEAKER_00: 23:28

So if you're listening to this and you feel like you're tired of rushing, tired of urgency, tired of pressure that no longer makes sense, I want you to hear this clearly. You are not falling behind. You are arriving differently. At this stage of life, speed is optional. Presence is not. Take your time, trust your pace. Nothing that's meant for you will pass you by. We all have the same 24 hours. Just because you're going faster, the world is spinning at the same speed. I want to thank you for being here. Thank you for slowing down with me. And remember, aging ain't for sissies, but it does teach you when to stop running. I want to remind you, I have two other podcasts inside Marcy's Mind and Unbottled. Please check them out. You can find them where you find all your podcasts. You can find all three of my podcasts on my website, Marcybacchusmedia.com. All three podcasts are there. You can listen to all of them. I encourage you to share these with your friends. If you have a note to drop me, please drop it at Marcybacchus Media at gmail.com. And remember, go out and do something positive.