Practicing Patience

Preparing Ourselves for Portugal by Practicing for a Slower Pace of Life

For a lot of people in the corporate world in the United States, our lives have been built around speed. Deadlines at work pile up, tickets and client expectations demand immediate responses, and everything moves in a cycle of urgency. Outside the office, the pace doesn’t really slow down. There’s family to care for, cars and a house to maintain, and in our case, even a rental property that always seems to demand attention at the worst possible times. Add in extended family responsibilities, and it’s easy to see how fast days, weeks, and months disappear.

We make it all work because of the environment we live in. Here in the States, convenience is king. If something breaks, a replacement can be at my door in less than 24 hours. If people are too tired to cook, food delivery shows up in under an hour. Errands are condensed into “power days” where we check off ten different tasks thanks to long store hours, wide availability, and endless options. Everything is geared toward efficiency and immediacy.

But that won’t be the case in Portugal, where we’re moving.

And honestly, that’s part of the point.

Why Portugal Doesn’t Need to Change—We Do

Life in Portugal runs on a different rhythm. Businesses may close for the afternoon, shops might not carry twenty different versions of the same product, and tasks that take a day here may stretch into a week there. At first glance, it looks like a slowdown, even an inconvenience. But maybe it’s really an invitation.

Portugal doesn’t need to change to meet our expectations of speed. We need to change to meet Portugal’s pace. That slower pace opens space for something we’ve been missing: deeper human connections, more mindful choices, and the ability to savor the everyday instead of rushing through it.

Rethinking “Productivity”

In the U.S., success often feels tied to how much you can accomplish in a short window. That frantic checklist energy is addictive. But moving abroad means rethinking what productivity looks like.

Yes, it may soon be a thing of the past to have one errand day where we get it all done in a whirlwind. Instead, errands might unfold across a week. But is that a bad thing? Slowing down means each task has its own space. A grocery run might include time to chat with the shop owner. Waiting in line at the post office might turn into a conversation with a neighbor. That’s not wasted time—it’s lived time.

Practicing Now for the Shift Ahead

The reality is, we don’t have to wait until Portugal to begin. Heck, today I’m sitting at my rental property waiting for my concrete contractors to arrive and pour a new patio.  I had planned to be here in the morning and then get other things done in the afternoon.  So I drove an hour here at 5:30am only to be then told by our contractor that he’ll be coming between 2 and 3pm.  All my other plans are now out the window.  Well, it’s an opportunity to practice what I’m here preaching.

We can start practicing for this slower pace now. That means resisting the urge to squeeze three errands into one trip. Getting things locally instead of having them delivered. It means letting tasks breathe rather than treating them like a race.

These little adjustments are our training ground. They help us not only prepare for a different pace abroad but also recognize that life doesn’t need to be dictated by convenience even here.

A New Kind of Richness                                                                             

As much as we’re looking forward to Portugal’s beauty, travel opportunities and history, what is also its own kind of exciting is the pace. Not everything has to be instant. Not everything has to be efficient. Sometimes the richest life is the one that moves slowly enough for us to notice it.

We’ve lived in fast-forward long enough. It’s time to learn to press pause.