I burnt my tongue on my morning coffee yesterday. Not because it was scalding hot, mind you, but because I was trying to drink it whilst simultaneously checking my emails, searching for the new YouTube tutorial on AI and mentally drafting a shopping list, of course to be completed the same day. Multitasking, we call this, na? Well let’s rename – this is a particularly modern form of madness, isn’t it?
When did we lose the ability to simply be? Hostile takeover is no longer what one country’s army does to the enemy. Think! The new-age army is none other than the 5-6 inches device that rules our lives. To linger over a cup of tea without our phones staging a hostile takeover of our attention is so impossible! When last have we sat by a window and watched the rain without feeling the urgent need to document it, filter it and share it with truckloads of strangers in a virtual reality world who probably couldn’t care less about the weather patterns in our neck of the woods? Practising mindful living in these moments is becoming a rare challenge.
The art of lingering, I’m discovering, is a dying breed. We’ve become a civilisation of skimmers, scrollers and scanners. We speed-read articles, binge-watch entire series in one sitting (guilty as charged) and munch and gulp our meals like we were just doing our mundane duty. We’re so busy rushing towards the next thing that we’ve forgotten to appreciate the current thing. Rather tragic and yeah right, we really have forgotten the art of lingering.
I blame the maddening race of productivity culture. That insidious little voice that whispers we’re wasting time if we’re not constantly achieving, optimising or at the very least looking terribly busy. Sitting quietly with our thoughts? Unthinkable! That’s five minutes we could have spent learning French on the net or organising our work cabinet, trashing all used docs.
But here’s the delicious irony: our parents…and going back, our ancestors… who had none of our modern conveniences, somehow found time to linger. They’d spend entire evenings on the veranda, watching the sun set, moms calling out to their kids and the neighbourhood children to get back home after the last round of street cricket. Chai would be sipped slowly, savouring each sip whilst engaging in the lost art of actual conversation. You know, the kind where you look at someone’s face rather than the top of their head as they scroll through their phone.
I tried an experiment yesterday. Revolutionary, really! I made myself a pot of tea—not your dip variety, Darjeeling Tea, the finest tea leaves, soaked to measure, then poured in a fine cup —and I sat down to drink it. Just drink it. No book, no phone, no mental to-do lists. Just me, the tea, its amazing fragrance and the peculiar luxury of doing nothing else. This simple act of stress reduction felt like a holiday.
The first three minutes were excruciating. My brain, unused to such idleness, began throwing up all manner of distractions. My hand reached out to the phone that wasn’t. Did I reply to that email? Should I check if the plants need watering? Is that a new wrinkle forming on my forehead? But I persisted and somewhere around minute four, something shifted. I tasted the tea. I felt its fine fragrance, I noticed the way the steam curled upwards. I realised I am blessed to have a beautiful garden. I heard the birds outside creating their morning symphony.
It was, quite frankly, magnificent. And slightly terrifying. Because if a simple cup of tea could be that enjoyable when given its due attention, what else had I been rushing through? How many sunsets had I photographed but not actually watched? How many meals had I eaten without tasting them? How many conversations had I half-listened to whilst my mind wandered to my inbox? Choosing to slow down is indeed an act of rebellion.
The thing about lingering is that it’s subversive. In a world that measures worth by output and productivity, choosing to slow down is indeed an act of rebellion. It’s saying, ‘Actually, this moment matters more than my eternally expanding to-do list.’ It’s prioritising experience over efficiency, in placing ‘being’ over ‘doing’. I’m not suggesting we all become philosophers, lazying throughout the day and counting stars at night. Bills still need paying, work still needs doing and someone really should do something about that pile of laundry that’s developing its own ecosystem and those books fighting for space on the shelf and threatening to fall from their orderly state. But perhaps we could reclaim a few moments each day for the simple pleasure of just being present.
Take your morning coffee on the balcony instead of gulping it down in traffic. Linger over Sunday breakfast. Sit in the garden or balcony for ten minutes sans your phone. And sans your thoughts. Watch the clouds drift by without feeling the need to caption them. Revolutionary stuff, I know. But this is how we build emotional well-being in a chaotic world.
The art of lingering isn’t about having more time—we’ll never have more than twenty-four hours in a day, regardless of how many productivity hacks we employ. It’s about savouring the time we have. It’s about resisting the urge to optimise every single moment and instead allowing some moments to simply be. Time to scale down our daily targets. Rather, shift targets to more intangible stuff around us. Finding a healthy work-life balance starts with these quiet protests.
So here’s to lingering. To long walks that go nowhere in particular. To conversations that meander delightfully off-topic. To books read slowly, meals eaten mindfully and mornings that unfold without urgency. To the revolutionary act of savouring rather than racing through precious, finite moments on this incredible place we call home.
My coffee’s getting cold as I write this. For once, I don’t mind. I’m too busy lingering over these thoughts, these words, this quiet moment before the day demands my attention. And you know what? It’s rather a lovely feeling, yes! Mindfulness for beginners can be as simple as this. Perhaps you’ll join me in this small rebellion? Fair warning: once you start noticing what you’ve been missing whilst rushing about, there’s no going back. But then again, who’d want to?
