Ruminating on life in the fast lane

Rameshinder Singh Sandhu

Whenever I am on the road, I feel impatience all around me. Everyone is in rush, and in such a great hurry that they can easily leave any ambulance or a fire engine behind. Honking constantly along, the race is always on to desperately get ahead of others.

However, if deeply thought, this impatience is not only on roads, rather in almost every aspect of our lives. I often view it more like a disease which seems to grow its dominance on most of us with every advancing day. But maybe since we have held it too tight — as if it’s a must for us, light at the end of the tunnel for its escape can rarely be seen.

Why do we suddenly draw inspiration from a Concorde while boarding a train, bus or a plane, despite our reserved seats? Of course, the scene is no different while disembarking too. Just imagine how we react when our internet’s speed suddenly crashes or slows down. Don’t we often gulp down our meals like machines? Why do even the fastest lifts seem slow to us? Doesn't all this flag the rush in us?

Just a few months back, taking clear cognisance of this rush running in us, a famous coffee brand floated large advertisements everywhere of its freshly opened drive-through service, citing ‘why wait for your brew, when you can drive threw?’

Not to forget, the high impatience continuously keeps us absorbed in multi-tasking and we justify it by blaming time’s paucity. Leaving very few, even during our walks, we go on making phone calls, forgetting the magic of walks without mobiles, as frequently pointed out by many studies, especially for great epiphanies crossing our minds, that can eventually help us in enriching our lives.

We have failed to understand how our haste has become our enemy, taking away all our calm, and in return, pumping all the anger in us.

Ikigai: The Japanese secret to a long and healthy life — the book I read recently, unfolds several interviews with many Japanese centenarians, but one of its answers seemed like a wakeup call: “My secret to long life has been always saying to myself, ‘slow down’, and ‘relax’… you will live much longer if you are not in hurry.” There was another one: “Those who are not in a hurry, get everything and get everywhere.” Is it not impatience to be responsible when people are mowed down by a train as they attempt to cross the closed railway crossing?

I agree, many of us juggle with many tasks, but being in a fast lane will do more harm than good, as also observed by American author Robert Greene, ‘Hasty climbers have sudden falls.’ So, why harm ourselves? Instead, remember the age-old lesson, ‘slow and steady wins the race’.

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