Published by HarperCollins on 16 Oct 2018
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Relax, unwind and soak up the wisdom of the sloth with the slowest page turner you’ll ever read.
From tidying and Hygge, to living Lagom, the endless pressure to be happier, live better, sleep soundly, and eat mindfully can be exhausting. But this year’s lifestyle trend finally delivers the perfect antidote – welcome to the year of the sloth.
Sloths are mindfulness in action. Contemplative, deliberate, relaxed, and focused. They resist the rat race, the incessant pressures from society to be more productive, and they don’t care how many steps they’ve logged on their fitness tracker. Long-limbed, a little bit shaggy, and a lot wide-eyed, they’re wonderful creatures, not to mention completely adorable.
Here you can enjoy take-it-slow wisdom inspired by sloths; including advice on sleep (more restorative than a 6am run), eating and ‘exercise’ (sloths are the original pioneers of slow food and yoga after all), work (did you know that lazy people have higher IQs?), family life, and love.
Dispelling over-complicated myths about productivity, this brilliant book confirms that it really is OK to be a sloth.
Embrace the art of slow reading: ...But we're not encouraged to read slowly. We're urged to consume micro-news every other minute in order to stay informed. We learn to skim headlines, instead of reading whole articles. We're challenged to read 100 books a year and keep track of our success in this endeavour online. We're obsessed with productivity at the expense of our reading enjoyment. The careless way we read both online and off has become an epidemic, according to some worried scientists. But there is a cure: slow reading.
I received this book as a gag gift from a friend over the holidays, had a good laugh about the title, ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the cute cover, and tucked it on my windowsill to sit pretty... until I remembered earlier this week that I never actually got around to reading the book.
Upon reading the inside flap with the blurb, I realised that this book wasn't just a cutesy little thing, but was actually pretty deep if you thought about it.
The sloth philosophy is all about mindfulness and reclaiming the word "lazy."
For example, think about being "lazy" as being efficient. I have a super smart friend who never took notes in class. Some might call her lazy, but what was really going was that she was listening actively without the distraction of keeping up with note-taking, and thus retained information better than many others in class, who would have to spend extra time reviewing and making sense of their notes. I'm not saying that we should all stop taking notes in class, but I'm showing that she did what worked for her, not what worked for other people.
The sloth philosophy is about being intentional with your time, taking the time you need, and doing what works for you, even when it doesn't make sense to other people. My most important takeaway, personally, was the suggestion to ask yourself, "What's the rush?"
Sloths spend most of their time in trees. They really prefer nature to people. And that's part of the reason they're so relaxed, probably.
Now, I warn you not to take all the advice in this book at face value, but to also think about the intention behind the advice, as sometimes the intention can be hidden behind the humour. Or, just enjoy it.
While I wouldn't necessarily buy this book for myself (unless you're looking for an aesthetic millennial pink book to add to your interior), this book would make a wonderful gift, gag or otherwise.
