Whoa!

Carl Honore is an author and speaker who is appearing in the Happiness conference in Melbourne.
As I understand from a short interview I heard, he is proposing that we should linger over some moments and not rush through life.

As soon as anyone hears this, they say "of course!"

But isn't this an example of society throwing away wisdom it already had? All the religions encourage regular prayer, from the Irish peasants stopping work in the field when they hear the Angelus bell, to the monks at regular prayer and Muslims stopping at regular times of the day for prayer.

Of course religions see this as a source of grace, not just of lifestyle, but maybe one leads to the other. It seems to happen too often that we take traditions and ask "does anyone know why we do this?" If there is no immediate answer, we throw it away, until we end up rediscovering it again later on. What a waste of time.