The Strength to Be Still: What Elephants Know About Living Well
There’s a particular kind of discomfort that comes with slowing down when you’re wired to move fast. Maybe you know it too.
It happens to me on the rare occasions I actually try to step away.
I’m in my chair — laptop balanced on a pillow, the news on mute, inbox open with an ever growing onslaught of unread requests, needs, suggestions, and business propositions.. My daughter taps me on the arm, card game in hand, her big brown eyes already doing battle with my relentless inner clock.
"One minute, honey."
My response is automatic. Reflexive. The instinct of a man who’s spent years learning how to squeeze every second for maximum efficiency. Time is oxygen. Efficiency is survival. The faster I move and the more time I devote to work the more tasks I address and boxes I check off.
Emails are piling up. Decisions are waiting. The list of projects grows.
But here she is. Waiting.
Not impatient. Just hopeful.
And suddenly I’m aware — painfully aware — that there’s a cost to always being productive. You can’t optimize presence. You can’t schedule your child’s devotion and put meaningful connection in a checkbox. You can’t speed through healthy relationships.
I close the laptop.
Take a slow, deliberate breath.
What’s the worst that could happen if I stop for ten minutes? Work will be there tomorrow. The projects will still be unfinished. But this? This moment where she’s still young enough to want my attention, still small enough to think cards with Dad is a prize worth waiting for — this is already slipping away.
She’ll outgrow this stage. Other concerns will crowd in. There will be a last time she asks. And I won’t know it’s the last until it’s gone.
So I lean forward, take the deck of cards, shuffle them across the coffee table. My racing thoughts loosen their grip. Her grin gives me a jolt of something better than adrenaline — it’s connection, joy, peace.
And I’m reminded — by this moment — that there’s a different kind of strength I need.
Not the strength to go faster and get more done.
I need the strength to slow down.
Elephants Know What We Forget
Elephants are not efficient by human standards. Elephants don’t rush. They don’t multi-task. They don’t run around trying to prove their worth by their output.
They move slowly — on purpose. They are deliberate. Measured. Steady to a fault.
They are the largest land mammals on earth and their survival depends, not on speed, but on memory, wisdom, patience.
The matriarch of an elephant herd knows where to find water in a drought — not because she googled it — but because she remembers. She’s walked the land for decades. She’s learned when to wait and when to move. They can lead their herds through drought-stricken landscapes successfully.
Scientists tell us that elephants are among the most emotionally intelligent creatures on earth. They mourn their dead. They comfort their young. They pause their migration to protect the weak.
They don’t panic in storms. They don’t scatter at the first sign of trouble. They gather. They slow down. They stay together.
And the more I pay attention — the more I realize how much of life I’ve lived at a pace that forgets what really matters.
I am not an elephant.
But I’m learning I need to become more like one.
