I hurried to work the other day, for I was running late.  It doesn't happen to me often, for I usually try to get places early (though I don't often succeed--usually I get there right around the time I'm supposed to be there).  But even if I'm late, I usually don't hurry--too many bad things can happen when I'm in a hurry, and I can make mistakes that I normally wouldn't make.  When I'm driving in my car, I don't want to make mistakes.

Since it was just a one-time thing, it didn't bother me too much to be in a hurry.  And even though I was hurrying, I didn't hurry that much--I still stopped to get a snack that I knew I'd need, I didn't speed or drive recklessly, and I didn't disregard others simply because I was rushing.  But the experience did make me think quite a bit about just how much our culture values the concept of hurrying things and people.

As the world grows smaller with technological and transportation advances, we see more and more a tendency to want to have everything done yesterday.  Most of us like most of the ramifications of this tendency--we can order a book online and it can be at our home in two days in many cases.  We can get our photos back in an hour, and we can have our oil changed and our car lubed in just twenty minutes.

But the benefits do have their price.  Much of that price is in the way that people feel more pressure to perform quickly, often at the expense of quality.  Many people aren't wired for that kind of work--they're much more suited for jobs that allow them to focus on details, to take their time and do their jobs right.

I also can't help but think that some of the computer problems I've run into in the last few weeks result from the manufacturer having strict quotas, needing to crank out a certain number of units per day.

Hurrying in the workplace can lead to drastic effects on people, especially forced hurrying.  Stress levels climb when quotas are in place, and it becomes very easy to dread our jobs, knowing before we go in each day that we're going to be judged on our performance based on the number of products we produce.  And in our hurry to reach the quotas, we may let something go by that we otherwise wouldn't have, and our personal satisfaction in the job we're doing suffers.  Once the inferior product reaches the consumer, there's another round of dissatisfaction that someone else has to deal with.  All because we as a society value speed almost above all else--but can we have our speed and our satisfaction, too?

But that's hurry on the job--what about in our personal lives?  Why do so many people feel that so many things have to be done right this moment?  Why do so many people feel they need to be everywhere two minutes ago?

One of the reasons I try to get to work early is that I like to enjoy the trip to work.  If I'm driving or walking, it doesn't matter--I want to enjoy getting there.  I want to experience my surroundings -- the air, the trees, the people, just the fact of being alive.  When I take my time I get there much more relaxed, too--much more ready to start my day in a positive way.  When I hurry, I'm not relaxed at all -- I get to work feeling all the residual stress that hurrying causes, and it takes me a while before that stress leaves and allows me to do my work effectively.

When I hurry I also don't get to know a lot about people with whom I share this planet.  I don't have time for a casual chat, to take a few minutes to listen to someone's experience from yesterday (and maybe even learn something from it!), or to give someone a small piece of advice.  I have to tell everyone "Sorry--I'm in a hurry!" and take off, and I get nothing from those people, and they get nothing from me.

When I'm hurrying, my focus also shifts to time, and how much of it is going by how quickly.  I don't focus on doing the best job I can or making sure that everything's done correctly--I just focus on the process of trying to hurry things up.  We all see it and hear it time and again--when you hurry, you make mistakes, and those mistakes probably would have been avoided if you had taken your time to do the job right.

One of the most tragic results of hurrying happened in our town last year when a mother was taking her two kids to a Little League game.  She was late and in a hurry, and when she passed a car on a double yellow she hit another car head-on.  Her two children died--all because she was in a hurry and she was focusing on hurrying rather than getting somewhere safely.  It was a completely needless tragedy that happened because she thought she could arrive ten minutes late instead of twelve or thirteen minutes late.

Most of our mistakes when we hurry aren't that drastic, of course, but we can never know the far-reaching implications of things that we do poorly because we don't give them the time and attention they deserve.  It's in our control, though--we can choose not to hurry, and though we may be a bit late or later with the finished product or to get to our next destination, remember that life was meant for living, not hurrying.  Get the most out of where you are--right here, right now--and try to plan your day and activities with enough time to get done the things that need to be done.  Get there thirteen minutes late if you need to, rather than hurrying so that you can arrive ten minutes late.

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Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with
the time we have rushed through life trying to save.