I didn't plan to do so. It just happened. Now it's the calmest part of my day. 

I used to think "slow living" was something you had to build into your calendar — a whole ritual with tea and journaling and soft morning light, the kind of thing that looks effortless in photos and takes real effort to actually do. I never had the time for that version of it. Most mornings, I'm moving from one thing to the next before I've fully woken up.

So I didn't notice, at first, that I'd started pausing.

It happened near the em-Li, of all places. I'd walk past it on my way to the kitchen counter, coffee in hand, and something would catch — a new leaf unfurling, the light hitting the greens a certain way, how much fuller it looked than it had two days ago. I'd stop. Not for long. Just long enough to actually see it.

I didn't plan for this to become a habit. There was no intention behind that first pause — I just stood there, for maybe fifteen seconds, doing nothing but looking. But it kept happening. Some mornings it's the only fifteen seconds in my day where I'm not thinking about the next thing.

What I've come to realise is that slow living was never about carving out an hour. It was about having something worth pausing for — something that changes quietly enough that you have to actually pay attention to notice it's changed at all. Growth doesn't announce itself. You have to be standing there.

Now it's the part of my morning I don't skip, even on the days I'm rushing. A few seconds of just admiring something growing, before the day asks anything of me.

I don't call it a ritual. It's smaller than that. But it's mine, and it's calm, and most days, it's enough.

- Yashaswini, an associate VP at an IT firm