Everything moves a little slower in winter
On finding the natural rhythm in life
I first fell in love with winter in 2001 when I visited Melbourne, Australia.
I remember stepping onto the pavement on Little Collins Street from our serviced apartment and breathing in the crisp, icy air of the early morning. I must have looked dazed to those who walked past on their way to work, saying, “How ya goin’?”
I never felt anything like this. Growing up in Singapore, where the temperature is usually above 30 degrees Celsius year-round, this was magical.
I watched my breath turn into small clouds. We found a lovely cafe opposite the apartment and ordered a big breakfast. Everything felt so foreign. People moved differently here. They smiled a lot and walked a little slower than people in Singapore, but with purpose. Their faces were kind, and they wore cool-looking, fashionable trench coats.
I was fascinated.
This wasn’t just cold. It was about a sense of time itself. Everything moves a little slower in winter.
In Singapore, seasons are binary: it’s rain or no rain, but the heat remains constant. You wear the same clothes throughout the year. The trees don’t change colour. There’s no rhythm that tells you to slow down or speed up. It’s always shouting ASAP.
But here in Melbourne, winter was whispering.
When we moved to Adelaide almost a decade later, I experienced the full cycle of the seasons. We adapted. And each season felt like a revelation.
Spring arrived with a gentle energy, like waking up from a long sleep. You feel like you want to start new projects: Build a house, start a business, write a book. There is an optimism that was asleep in winter, but dreaming. It feels like I have more time as the day gets longer.
Summer brought a different kind of anticipation. In Australia, Christmas is just around the corner, and a new year is coming. The village where we live comes alive. I see more people out and about. “Barbies and crickets” as the sun sets after 8:30. We also see snakes, and flies, and mozzies as the days and nights warm up.
And just as it starts to get uncomfortably warm, autumn comes. The vines on our deck begin to let go as the day shortens. The heatwave ends, and I find myself once again looking forward to the bitter cold.
Cyclical, not linear
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose
under the heaven” – Ecclesiastes 3:1
Most of my life, I thought about time the way I was taught to think about it. Linear. Progressive. Always moving forward. Success means improvement, constant growth and forward motion.
This perspective is rooted in Judeo-Christian tradition. Creation, progress, death, eternity. It is a strange and illogical concept that you can have a beginning but no end. How can anything be only half-eternal?
It’s also the foundation of our economic systems, our careers, and our entire approach to life. We measure success by how far we’ve come, how much we’ve grown, and how much we’ve accumulated. Always one more than before.
But there is a different perspective, one I had never fully considered until I started living in Australia.
In Chinese (and other) thinking, everything moves in seasons. One after another, but always returning. Like the Tai Chi symbol, there’s no beginning or end, just endless cycles of life, death, and rebirth.
This perspective runs through every aspect of Eastern philosophy, perhaps starting with the farmers who mastered the cyclical nature of crops at different times of year. Agriculture became a way of understanding everything from medicine to cuisine to life itself. This thinking offers a different way to understand the inevitable ups and downs of life. When things go badly, when loss or failure or disappointment strikes, we know that all these shall pass. Winter always gives way to spring. The darkest moments come just before dawn.
This isn’t some naive optimism or wishful thinking. It’s a deep understanding that difficulty and ease, sorrow and joy, struggle and success are all part of an eternal cycle. I think this builds resilience in a way that linear thinking doesn’t. Instead of seeing setbacks as permanent or that life is hopeless, it recognises them as parts of a larger pattern. There are opportunities in crisis, just as one should be cautious when good fortune comes in abundance. Things change, and nothing lasts forever.
This also influenced how I think about getting old. I am nearly 60. I’m in the autumn of my life, and I’m learning to let go.
Autumn is a time when you look forward to the rewards for a long year’s worth of work. It’s when you prepare the grounds for the next season, the next generation. There’s a beauty in autumn that spring doesn’t have, and a melancholic depth that summer can’t match. It’s also the time when you anticipate the restful sleep that will inevitably come when winter arrives.
Modern life doesn’t make this easy. Our economy demands consistent productivity regardless of the seasons. We celebrate youth and growth over wisdom and reflection. We’re expected to maintain the pace as long as we can, like living in the eternal heat of summer.
I’ve now learned that resisting the natural rhythms is exhausting and ultimately futile. Better to work with, to find ways to dance with the rhythm of the seasons within the constraints of modern living.
Why I love winter
I think about that morning in Melbourne often. Standing on a street, watching my breath in the cold air, feeling the bite of winter for the first time. I had no idea that moment would change how I understand life itself.
I love winter because I know it will end. An endless winter would be no winter at all. It would be a frozen hell where nothing changes and nothing grows. The beauty of winter lies in its promise of spring, and even the bloody heat of summer. In the certainty that the wheel will turn again.
This is the gift of the seasons. It is hope. Darkness comes before the light of dawn. The coldest day signals that warmth is returning. When life feels hopeless, when progress seems impossible, winter whispers, “This, too, shall pass.”
I cannot imagine the Christian idea of eternal bliss or suffering. Each stretches endlessly with no promise of change, no renewal. It’s the nightmare of being stuck forever in the same place, the same mood, the same circumstances, like hell. Or heaven. But cycles offer something different: Rebirth.
There’s comfort in knowing that when my winter ends, I too may return. Perhaps not the same person who entered the cold season. This version of me will give way to another, ready for new adventures. The cycle will continue, as it always has, as it always will.
Winter in Australia taught me that I had been living in linear time for most of my years, always pushing forward, never allowing for the rhythm of advance and retreat, labour and rest, ebb and flow. Winter has offered me a different way of being in the world, one that honours the great cycle of life.
The rhythm of the seasons is the rhythm of all life, and I am in tune with time itself. In this harmony, there is peace. In this cycle, there is hope. In this return, there is home.