If someone asked me how I spent the last 25 years, I would have to say, “In a hurry.” That is not a statement I am really proud of. In fact, it is one of the things I deeply regret about the last two decades. My husband and I were married in 1986 and very involved in a larger faith community in Melbourne. Three children later and life continued to get more and more hectic. My husband was (and is) the Senior Minister of this church, and I was on staff fulfilling various roles. Everything moved fast. I never questioned this breakneck speed because in my mind this was all part of ‘God’s will’. This pace was also something I was used to from my childhood, where both parents worked and hurry was the norm.
It takes a very long time to become conscious of the fact that the way we charge through life at great haste, is not ideal. It takes even longer to begin to start to recover from this modern malaise. We eat fast, talk fast, walk fast, hit the elevator button twice and get irritated while waiting in traffic. We have become the experts in ‘multi-tasking’ and our conversations often center around how busy we are. Look around you, especially if you live in the city, notice how everyone seems to be doing life with a great sense of hurried urgency? Even in this ‘jolly’ Christmas season, tempers flare as shoppers are on a hurried hunt to find the ‘perfect’ presents for their loved ones.
Here is the bad news: this hurry thing is killing us. Hurry sickness has been defined as ‘a behaviour pattern characterised by continual rushing and anxiousness: an overwhelming and continual sense of urgency.’
Do we tolerate this rather second-rate way of life because it takes us such a long time to be truly honest with ourselves? We believe the slogans that slick marketing machines throw at us. So we work harder and longer to buy more stuff that we don’t need. Stuff, that causes us untold anxiety as we work relentlessly in order to repay the debt that we owe on the stuff we don’t need. For a split second we get a feeling of ‘pleasure’ from our possessions and this, in turn, feeds hollow ideals of ‘happiness’. So we have successfully created a contemporary world of hurry-harrowed people with bling and zing … and empty lives. Our consumer habits have won the day, or as William Wordsworth put it: “Habit rules the unreflective soul.” Slowly, like Truman Burbank, we begin to wake up to our false hyper-reality and realise the trouble we are in. No wonder there’s such an enthusiastic move towards minimalism.
“The great benefit of slowing down is reclaiming the time and tranquility to make meaningful connections — with people, with culture, with work, with nature, with our own bodies and minds,” writes Carl Honore. There is something about the discipline of slow that allows us to be truly human again. The popular Psalm 23 describes a Shepherd who leads his sheep by quiet waters and allows them to rest in green pastures. Unfortunately, this Psalm is often read at funerals, whereas it would serve much better as a reflection for the living.
It took me a long time to acknowledge that I was addicted to a different type of speed. Change was painful. But my life is different today. I have made choices that reflect my desire to live a more contemplative and attentive life. As a recovering hurry addict, I still at times hear the voices of my addiction. They try to tempt me back to that place. Sometimes they can be quite persuasive. But I have tasted a different life. It is in the ‘slow’ that I have learnt to see and it is in the unhurried that I have found joy. I don’t want to go back. So I have set some things in place that I practice. They include learning to listen more deeply, savouring the various moments throughout the day, expressing gratitude, saying ‘no’ without feeling guilty, freeing myself from religious cliches that promised life but brought ashes, throwing away unrealistic ‘to do’ lists and watching the sunset most evenings.
Friend, I am not here to tell you how to live your life. This blog is simply a tiny voice to point out that you have one magnificent life to live. Does your life truly reflect what you say you value? Maybe, like me, you have to make some changes – after all there’s a whole world of roses out there. Imagine if you didn’t make the time to smell even one?
“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”
Leo Tolstoy