Why the Hurry?
John Twisleton puts the brakes on
‘Quick’s dead and Hurry’s in its grave'
my Grandma used to say.
I cannot remember the things that caused me to hurry in Grandma’s day, but I know how hurried I am now as I work through emails, texts, tweets and the demands of work and family.
Like a traffic sign inviting reduction of speed, Grandma’s saying flashes into mind as I maintain the struggle to satisfy demands, many of which I balk at. Putting the brakes on ‘Hurry’, is partly putting the brakes on commitments that have been taken on thoughtlessly.
Strategic thinking is one way to slow a hurried lifestyle, but there is a deeper perspective. Grandma’s saying is actually against greed. When hurrying, we can attempt to pack into life – or get out of life – more than we need. It may be an unconscious recognition of our mortality. We have a greed to grab at opportunities, whether or not they are coming our way, and cram them into our finite lifespan.
I write as an opportunist who has been learning to qualify this tendency over the years, since I sat at Grandma’s feet. I understand now that people in a hurry are not the flavour of the month when compared to the swan-like, tranquil folk who never hint what is paddling away under the surface of their lives. By just being there, unhurried, they draw attention and friends as they invite us to waste the time that we see as so precious.
If I want to be more calm like them, I have to recognise that seizing creative opportunities needs balancing with the capacity to connect with those who are undermined by Hurry.
Better slower together than faster alone.
In March 2015, The Independent confirmed this:
‘A survey of 2010 people aged between 21-65 yr by the investment company Scottish Widows, showed that 9 out of 10 people regret rushing their career choice, while almost as many regret hurrying financial decisions (87 percent).
On the flip side, a quarter of people in the UK feel guilty if they have spare time on their hands, while 70 percent of people think they are more pushed for time than they were three years ago – two factors that might contribute to making rushed life choices.’
The world gives us an unprecedented choice that, although welcome, also brings serious dangers. We can now access people, leisure or work options at the touch of a screen. Our time gets quickly filled with desirable alternatives that we seize upon, hurrying crazily from one activity to another, driven by messages coming in to us at the speed of light.
They set human beings up to travel much more slowly. It helps that we are becoming more aware of the wires of the electronic media they expose us to, with its abundant welcome or unwelcome demands, but there are wider issues.
“Why Boredom is so powerful in life?”
Professor John Eastwood, director of the Boredom Lab at York University, writes of two distinct types of personality that suffer from boredom.
The first type of people have an impulsive mindset
The second type feels the world is a fearful place
For one, the world is a fearful place from which they withdraw with chronic boredom being the consequence. The other type has an impulsive mindset, hurrying about looking for novel experiences with boredom setting in through under-stimulation. My family and friends contain both categories of boredom suffered, one working to counter their fears and the other working to counter their hurry.
The writer G. K. Chesterton mused that ‘One of the great disadvantages of hurry is that it takes such a long time’. Chesterton’s witty saying hits the nail on the head about ‘Hurrying’ has a relentless grip once he gets a hold on us.
Never a dull moment? Misuse of time can bring a hurriedness that, deep down, dulls our lives. We get distracted from the best use of time, which includes wasting it.
Grandma was a good time-waster, happy to spend it sitting alone and unoccupied in her living room. She greeted visitors with a radiant smile and listened, giving us attention as if we were the centre of the world. As I sat quietly with her, my mind would race away though, thinking through the next thing to spend my time on.
By osmosis, however, I absorbed time-wasting from her, as my writing now shows. I feel I will not remain human without gaining her skill to live unhurriedly, without wasting time. A generation on, though, that is easier said than done.
When you are relying on others putting the brakes on ‘Hurry’ is unwarranted when missing your train consigns you to an hour on a cold platform. Strategic thinking, finding and keeping the most important things in life, can counter over-extension and diminish ‘Hurry’, but only when acted upon by saying ‘No’ to others.
Such self-control is hampered when life gets into a ‘Rush’. One stage further on than ‘Hurry’, ‘Rush’ implies a charge of emotion in which we become even less able to weigh up options and priorities.
If one brake to ‘Hurry’ is set apart a regular peaceable time to recall life goals and priorities a to-do list, quite a small period – another is to appreciate serendipity.
You can have a strategy to slow down your life, going for quality before quantity in engagement, but consequential serendipity is a better brake. By being open to reining back activities, they draw us into life’s lucky chances, its hour-by-hour surprises. ‘What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare’ wrote Welsh poet, W. H. Davies, in his poem ‘Leisure’.
I am a ‘human being’ not a ‘human doing’.
Just ‘Being’ seems alien to part of me, even with those I love. For Grandma there was no ‘just’, her influence was simply that of a warm and personal presence, encountering her was naturally unhurried, the best sort of serendipity.
Being available to others, without demands, to give you time and ear will always be attractive. Putting the brakes on ‘Hurry’, so our minds appreciate the present moment, is a great aspiration, even if it remains in tension with ‘making time’ to fulfil the demands ahead.
The French military has a saying reculer pour mieux sauter – ‘coil up to better spring forth’ (or in Modern English: : to draw back to make a better jump) to make a strategic withdrawal which captures the rebalancing involved in breaking ‘Hurry’, so life can best speed ahead.
Meet this week’s author John Twisleton
An ideas and people person, author and broadcaster. A Yorkshire Dalesman he has worked his way down England to become a Sussex Downsman living between London and Brighton in Haywards Heath. His doctorate in polymer science. was awarded by Oxford University where he switched careers to train as an Anglican priest serving in Doncaster, Guyana, Coventry, London and Sussex in parishes and as a diocesan adviser and college principal. John is married to Anne with three children and two grandchildren. His middle name Fiennes is a reminder of his connection with the famed Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes family. His passion is helping people find peace in turbulent times and get humanity better minded to serve the common good.
Subeditor Michael Taylor HappyLondonPress.com
Subeditor Michael Taylor HappyLondonPress.com
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