Image Credit: KoolShooters
My husband shared with me something the Army told GIs when they began basic training, “Hurry up and wait.” Now, while this little command seems like an oxymoron, it is definitely food for thought and a warning to heed.
Recently, I was reading an article by Melissa Kirsch in The New York Times, entitled ‘Hurry up and wait.” While the title drew that familiar conversation with my husband and a term I heard frequently when I visited VA facilities, it prompted me to read further. Her excerpt: We know that happiness is to be found in taking our time and being present. How can we slow down and stop rushing our way through life?
I love these points she made that we often breeze over:
We rush because we’re late. We also rush because we want to move quickly away from discomfort. We rush to come up with solutions to problems that would benefit from more sustained consideration. We rush into obligations or decisions or relationships because we want things settled.
Worrying is a kind of rushing: It’s uncomfortable to sit in a state of uncertainty, so we fast-forward the tape, accelerating our lives past the present moment into fearsome imagined scenarios.
I frequently have conversations with myself about slowing down, and I am getting better at it. But there are times when I get anxious and try to solve an issue by rushing through the process. I make silly errors when I accelerate to speeding in a strolling zone. I have learned to slow it down a couple of notches so I can appreciate this gift of life.
How do you stop and smell the roses, tulips, gardenias, or magnolias? How do you curb and reduce your speed limit when you begin to run too fast when you’re running on empty? Give yourself a permission slip to take a chill pill and live in the moment.










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