Sloths Go Through Life At Their Own Pace
April Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Life”
Rushing through life will kill you.
The two-toed sloth in my photo resided in a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center I visited in 2010 while vacationing in Costa Rica. I considered using this photo last month in a response to Mary Chang Story Writer’s March prompt, “Movement.” It could’ve highlighted the merits of slow and steady motion, like Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare.
But there’s an even more fundamental lesson to be learned from sloths. In important respects, their whole approach to life may be wiser than our own.
Sloths are unhurried creatures — one of the slowest moving animals in the world. British zoologist Becky Cliff (2016) suggests the slowness of sloths enables them to survive, which they have done on Earth quite successfully for 64 million years.
According to the Sloth Conversation Foundation, sloths in the wild get plenty of sleep — about 8 to 10 hours a day — and can rest, completely inactive, for much longer periods to conserve energy. Because of their slow movement, low body temperature, and slow metabolism and digestion, they don’t burn many calories. They eat mostly leaves, and they avoid danger from predators not by running away, but by staying silent and still.
When compared to the sloth, it becomes evident that other living creatures — especially us humans beings—are living life in a hurry. Our schedules may be so packed with work, family, education, hobbies, social events, and entertainment that we find ourselves scurrying from one activity to the next without fully experiencing any of them.
We might go for weeks or months feeling like we have no downtime for ourselves, are too hurried to truly connect with our loved ones, too busy prepare healthy meals, and unable to sleep deeply at night. At the end of each day, and at the end of our lives, we may wonder where all the time went and what it all means.
We’re going to die eventually, but why rush it? Sloths teach us to slow down and savor every moment.
For 3 touching stories about the life-changing gifts humans receive from animals, read these six-word photo stories: Victoria Ponte’s Horses Set Me Free, Aimée Brown Gramblin’s Tell Me Again Dogs Don’t Smile, Warren Turner’s Never Live Without Cats.
My story was inspired by Sandi Parsons’ “Life” writing prompt for April. I’m grateful to the awesome Six Word Photo Story Challenge publication, its creator and editor, Mary Chang Story Writer, and editors Sandi Parsons and Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles.
