What’s the Rush?

I have a“pet peeve”; all the folks who insist on driving 60 mph in a 45 mph zone, or worse, 50 mph in a 35 mph zone! This particular behavior can really get my dander up  – especially because I live off a road where the speed limit is 45 mph, and I have folks barreling down the hill behind me at 60 + as i’m trying to slow down and negotiate the turn onto my road.

It’s the barreling part that really gets to me.  I usually take to muttering nasty things under my breath as people speed past, or worse, I pull out into the left hand lane to block their path all the while asking them in my thoughts, “what’s the friggin rush?  Is the 5 minutes gained from going over the speed limit worth it?”.  It feels so good to be ‘self righteous’, taking up an attitude that I’m above this menacing and, possibly, sociopathic type of behavior.

Then I got honest with myself and began to inventory my own hurried behavior; all the different (and often subtle ways) that I rush through my life.  My rushing was a seed planted within me at a very, very early age – I can still hear my mom’s voice in the back of my mind as I struggled to ‘do my business’; “hurry up, were going to be late!”  Was being on time really that important? More important than ‘doing ones business in a relaxed and ease-filled manner’?  In my family the unequivocal answer was “yes”.  Being “late” was the gravest of sins, along with being idle, the “sin” of Not Doing Something!

The seed began to sprout and take hold throughout my childhood, like kudzu, that pervasive weed which swallows other, possibly more native, gentle plants  – I learned to “rush” through the prayer at meal times so I could get to the meal.  Then, I would “rush” through my meal (to my parent’s consternation!) so I could go back outside to play. I would rush through my homework so I could move on to the next activity, I would rush thorough my piano lessons, hence I never got good at the piano – and on, and on, and on…

I carried this behavior into my adulthood – rushing to get through college; then graduate school, then to get married, then to have a child, then to get divorced….forty plus years of my life consists of rushing through practically everything I did, doing, doing, doing…robbing myself of the (to me) mysteriously fulfilling art of Being – “savoring” the moments of everyday living.  I think of my memories as those blurry snap-shots one takes while rushing past the gorgeous scenery on a high speed train.  Sad to say,  but I realized recently that I was afraid that if I took my time to savor I would be late, and worse, I would be “doing” nothing.

Obviously, my sensitivity to other people’s rushing and frenetic doing is a signal that my own house needs to be ‘put in order’;  it’s no wonder the trait  – in others – irks me so…it’s time for my own rushed ‘doing’ to abate.  One gift of aging is that the body begins to step in and slow things down.  My intention now is to follow it’s lead; to do less, and Be more – and Be Well with Ease.